


Gods And Monsters (And Teething Rings)

by thirstysixdegrees (Phoeliac)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Anal Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff, Hand Jobs, Humor, Lactation Kink, M/M, Male Lactation, Mpreg, References To Victor's Foot Thing, hospital birth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-13 14:43:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 35,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12986265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoeliac/pseuds/thirstysixdegrees
Summary: [For the Knock Yuuri Up Week - each chapter will be a different day, with a different prompt/focus.]Yuuri knows it’s going to be a long day when his father looks at his bed-head, the itchy lovebite on his neck, and says, over the breakfast table, “you know, when your mother was pregnant -”“Oh no, look at that,” Yuuri stands up from the table, “I absolutely have to be somewhere else right now.”





	1. The Green Man

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos to the people at [Knock Yuuri Up Week](https://knockyuuriupweek.tumblr.com) for being cool and giving us this excellent event. This is my first time writing mpreg and I decided to just jump straight into a week long event, but I'm having a blast :D
> 
> This is Day One: Planning and Announcement | Impregnation.
> 
> (NB: This is less a continuous plot and more a collection of moments in the same universe.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Victor is a god, Yuuri thinks, when he first sees him as a child. He’s glory and celestial beauty, and Yuuri thinks he’s beginning to understand why his father always looks at his mother the way he does - a little lost, happily hopeless, and prone to make Mari gag theatrically. It’s the look of a mortal questioning how they won divine favour. How they won the heart of heaven._
> 
> _(“It’s the look of a sappy old man,” Minako tells him when he asks, “and your mother’s just as bad.”)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  __ **Original Note:**  
>  Kudos to the people at Knock Yuuri Up Week for being cool and giving us this excellent event. This is my first time writing mpreg and I decided to just jump straight into a week long event, but I'm having a blast :D
> 
> _(NB: This is less a continuous plot and more a collection of moments in the same universe.)_
> 
> **New Note:**  
>  New year, new chapters, new words! I wasn’t happy with the first chapter of this for a good while, so I, a fool, rewrote it. (Notes at the end of chapter 5 on that matter.) This chapter is now more of a belated focus on the discovery/impregnation aspect, rather than a blend of the two actual prompts. 
> 
> It’s also a lot longer, and the fic now has actual chapter titles! 
> 
> I added exposition and, hopefully, clarity about their divine powers so no one else gets three chapters in and realises “holy shit they were being literal about the flowers.” (Which, by the way, if you did? You are valid and I love you, because I did not make that clear enough in the original version of this.)
> 
> I hope you enjoy it :D

\- - -   - - -   - - -

Victor is a god, Yuuri thinks, when he first sees him as a child. He’s glory and celestial beauty, and Yuuri thinks he’s beginning to understand why his father always looks at his mother the way he does - a little lost, happily hopeless, and prone to make Mari gag theatrically. It’s the look of a mortal questioning how they won divine favour. How they won the heart of heaven.

(“It’s the look of a sappy old man,” Minako tells him when he asks, “and your mother’s just as bad.”)

He’s twelve, just coming into his own powers, when Victor appears to him, like a pillar of light parting a cloud. One gorgeous line of divinity, trailing silver, starlike petals from his hair, and carving himself into Yuuri’s heart just as easily as he cuts the ice. Yuuri watches him and feels something in the universe, in the air, in himself quiver. Like a soft voice going ‘ _oh’_.

He watches Victor and sees his future laid out before him - watches his future smile, charmingly for cameras, his neck wrung round with gold. And Yuuri knows, in the same way he knows his own name, that he needs to share the ice with the boy who leaves a trail of flowers and broken hearts in his wake.

 

Yuuri is half right, it turns out, when - a good decade later - Victor appears in the onsen, all flushed skin and teeming pink roses in his hair. Making Yuuri’s heart skitter, nervously, in his chest, alongside declarations of becoming his coach.

He’s a vision in the steam and Yuuri is frozen on the spot. Half caught in the reality of the situation, half stuck in the way Victor’s hair looks darker with wetness, one grey lock curling under his ear. It’s like Victor’s presence is a whole other person wrapping itself around Yuuri. Something sumptuous and sinking and Yuuri can’t think more than two words ahead.

“Um,” He manages, and promptly wishes the onsen’s waters would rise up, swallow him whole, and sweep him away. He’s sure they could do it if they wanted. Maybe if he prayed really hard to any god who’d listen-

“Oh,” Victor says, surprise making his face slack and his roses pale, “is that you?”

Yuuri blinks at him, then looks around at their surroundings to confirm that he is, indeed, the only other person present. An awful thought strikes him and he sweeps his eyes around again to make sure that no one has put any posters of him up anywhere in view; they haven’t, which is a relief, but also, doesn’t get him any closer to having a clue what’s happening.

When he looks back at Victor, he’s blinking down at the water, one hand over his heart. He looks...thoughtful, but untroubled. Beautiful in person, though the angles of his features are sharper than in media. He seems vital and lovely and Yuuri wants to...he doesn’t know what. Is filled with energy just from _looking_ at him.

Victor’s chest flushes, and the flowers crowning his silver head become vivid again, pink spilling over them like ink in a glass. Finally, he looks back up at Yuuri and smiles.

“It’s a little overwhelming, but I can see why people enjoy it,” he says. Apparently as explanation.

Yuuri, squints at him.

“Excuse me?”

“It’s a side-effect, isn’t it?” Now Victor looks a little confused, and he goes to climb out of the pool but stops when Yuuri squeaks. Shoots him an amused glance, gestures at his own head, “like my flowers?”

“ _What_ is?” Yuuri says, as if he has a single fucking clue what words are, and isn’t having a minor conniption under his idol’s stare.

“That,” Victor taps his chest again, and this time Yuuri feels the slight strain, the tense twist to how his heart is thudding almost out of his chest, sees the flush on Victor’s neck and _realises_.

He flinches. Normally has better control over his emotions - has learned from his mother when to lock his heart up, and when to let it echo out, to fill the corridors with reverberating affection. Yuuri takes a sharp breath and tries to push the feeling down.

Then he goes to bow, apologetically, and aborts halfway through, because Victor is _smiling_.

He’s also looking at Yuuri like he’s a particularly baffling puzzle, but still. Victor Nikiforov, living legend, Actual Factual God, is _beaming_ at Yuuri in the heat of his parents’ onsen.

Yuuri presses his hand to his own chest.

“Sorry. It’s not normally this strong, but…” he strokes his thumb as his heart jumps, thinks he sees Victor’s eyes widen for a moment, and finishes, “ah. Maybe we can talk more...when you’re wearing clothes?”

Victor almost seems to pout, but nods and climbs out of the baths.

Yuuri pretends not to notice the way the decorative plants seem to follow him with their leaves.

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

Yuuri is, it turns out, only about two-thirds right about any given thing at any given time.

He learns this the April after he retires. After a belated Valentine’s fortnight spent in a chalet in Geneva, where they make very little use of the clothes they packed, and try not to think too hard on why Chris’ family cabin contains twice as many keys as there are locks.

(“They’re eccentric,” Victor says, by way of explanation, when Yuuri finds what appears to be half of a metal cuff down the back of the sofa one evening.

He stares at Victor, who pauses before offering, “...European eccentric?”)

They get back to Hasetsu tired and happy, and Yuuri bleeds his contentment from the train station back to their home, matching Victor, whose crown is threaded with sleepy looking forget-me-nots.

Makkachin is with Yuuri’s parents, meaning they have the first night to themselves, and they collapse together onto the sofa the minute the door shuts behind them. Yuuri sprawls across the cushions, tucks his socked toes into the crease of the arm, and smiles when Victor curls into his chest to wrap round him like moss.

It’s easy to fall asleep, under the influence of jet-lag and Victor’s tight embrace. So Yuuri does, to the steady sound of Victor’s breathing.

He dreams of floating in some distant, dark space. Like he’s being cradled by water so warm and gentle, he can’t tell it from his own limbs. Safely ensconced, and then - there’s something, like a shadow of wind, moving over him. It’s creeping, exploring, but not threatening. Like a curious presence, or energy, and Yuuri lies still. Lets its warmth prickle and settle.

His hands drift up to catch it and he catches nothing. Nothing but space between his palms, and the strangest sensation of softness between his fingers, silky like Victor’s hair or Makka’s fur. The warmth pools and he dreams that he’s falling, or sinking, into the waves. Pulled backwards from the gut, his middle a sickly weight all of a sudden; he thinks he tastes snow as he drifts down, and there’s a flicker of a red star, bursting out of silver strands before there’s blackness.

Yuuri jolts awake to find the afternoon has turned into evening, and Victor’s snuffling has turned into full-blown, engine-like snores. Yuuri’s got one hand tangled in Victor’s shirt and the other over his belly, and he feels _serene_. Like everything’s right where it should be.

He shifts so that Victor’s tucked into his shoulder, his breath puffing rhythmically against Yuuri’s collar, and Yuuri is _happy._

 

They retrieve Makkachin the next morning. Drag themselves upright and yawning to the onsen, holding hands and bumping shoulders with one another. Victor’s sleepy and sluggish, and despite this his energy is electric and tangible round them. Yuuri feels far more alert than usual for a morning, and happily takes the lead, pulling Victor through the streets.

The walk is mostly quiet. Still early enough that they only encounter the occasional commuter on their walk towards Yu-topia; it feels like something private, just for them. There’s vivid orange peeking out between Victor’s hair - zinnias, in stark contrast the bruised smudges beneath his eyes - and Yuuri pauses at the end of the street to press a kiss to the corner of Victor’s mouth.

“ _Yuuri_ ,” Victor pouts, and turns his head to chase a proper kiss from him, “I wasn’t ready.”

Yuuri huffs, and stretches up to let Victor press their lips together. He lingers sleepily, warm and tasting like toothpaste still. It’s precious. Priceless. It has his heart thumping like he’s a teenager watching his crush on TV all over again.

When he pulls back, Victor’s rubbing his chest with one hand, smiling dopily and turning pink in the morning light.

“I thought you liked surprises,” Yuuri says, lightly, before turning and tugging Victor back into motion towards the inn, his footsteps a little less zombie-like as they approach the door.

They let themselves in, Yuuri calling out and earning a muffled reply. As he and Victor shuck off their shoes, there’s the clatter of uncoordinated feet and panting and then a furry missile barrels towards them.

Yuuri braces himself and Victor drops into a crouch, arms outstretched and letting out a delighted, “Makka!”

Makkachin woofs and slides to an ungainly halt on the panelled floor, before diving into Victor’s arms. Accepting his attention and crooning praise with all the dignity of a pup ten years her junior. She turns round and round under his hands, then when Yuuri crouches down to join in, she makes a beeline for him.

“Hey-” he manages, before she’s licking his face and practically climbing into his lap.

Yuuri laughs, runs his hands through her warm curls and then-

Makkachin stops. Sits back, attention caught by _something_ , and her intelligent eyes fix on Yuuri, who feels like he’s being thoroughly studied. He cocks his head down at her. Victor makes a questioning noise, and then Makkachin’s tail starts thudding against the floor even harder.

Yuuri smells the phantom autumn air again - thinks he sees red out the corner of his eyes - and Makkachin is jumping, bouncing, and barking ecstatically. Like she’s not seen them in years, never mind nearly a month.

“Makkachin,” Yuuri laughs, when she darts towards him again, shoving her cold nose against his belly and nearly knocking him over, “we missed you too.”

“I hope you’ve been good,” Victor says, stroking his hand down her long back, and earning an interested lick for his trouble.

They stay there a moment, fussing her, letting her alternate between jamming her face determinedly into Yuuri’s middle and licking each and every part of them she can reach. It’s grounding, a reminder that they’re connected to this place, no matter how far away they go. Yuuri wants to hold the moment, stretch it out as long as he can in his memories. It’s small and every day, but it’s theirs and it’s home.

Makkachin promptly starts trying to shove her muzzle under Yuuri’s shirt, and as Yuuri pushes the poodle’s nose gently away, his mother walks into view. A light and pleased tendril of feeling curls towards them, and Yuuri smiles up at her. Lets his heart reach out in return.

“She’s always good,” Hiroko says, and waves for them to follow her, “we’ve just started breakfast.”

Victor stands upright and shoots Yuuri a bright smile, takes his hand in his as he steps forward towards the family room. Yuuri goes with him - and finds Makkachin following, as though connected to his hip.

He pauses. So does Makkachin. He scratches behind her ears, and she pants happily, but the minute they start walking again, she’s glued to his side.

“Hmm,” he says, as Victor makes an offended little sound.

“No love for me?” He whines, and Makka woofs, softer now, at his pouting face. Yuuri squeezes his hand and Victor relents, eyes glittering.

Makkachin sticks to Yuuri all through breakfast, a furry, vigilant weight beside him.

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

“Good _afternoon_ ,” Minako says, when Yuuri turns up at her place the next day.

It’s nearly half eleven, and Yuuri is only _half_ certain Minako won’t make his life a misery for being late now that he’s an actual grown up who has grown up things like a house, and a husband, who was being very distracting when Yuuri was supposed to be meeting Minako earlier in the morning.

(Victor was all long limbs and biting kisses, reeling Yuuri in like a fish on a hook, until Yuuri had realised the time and left him, pouting and pantless, in the bedroom.)

He’s about to drop into an apologetic bow, when Minako just smirks, knowingly, and flicks his neck.

“Ah, the honeymoon period,” she turns on her heel and makes her way back into the living room, “next time, try concealer.”

Yuuri slaps a hand to his neck in place of slapping it to _his face_ and follows her. He’s fairly certain it doesn’t count as a honeymoon period when you’ve been married nearly four years, but he’s too mortified to argue. Instead, he clears his throat and speaks.

“I’m sorry, Minako-sensei, we just sort of-”

She turns and waggles her eyebrows at him, in a way that says she knows _exactly_ what they were “just sort of” doing.

Yuuri stops talking. Worries his ring round his finger, as his stomach does something unpleasant and twisty.

“Sorry.” He finally manages.

Minako waves dismissively, and smiles at him. Saunters into the kitchen where there’s a pot of tea on the side. She hands him a tray, and he stands there, awkwardly, while she piles teapot and saucers and cups on it - then directs him back to the living room. It’s a little like her dance instruction. Meticulous, abrupt, with not a single word spoken.

Yuuri, back straight, steps through. Places the tray on the coffee table and sits down. He reaches for the teapot but she swats his hand away and pours two cups out.

“So. _Retirement_.” Minako says, as she hands him one cup and she joins him on the sofa. Settles with the same easy grace she’s always had - that Yuuri envied as a child.

She sips, daintily, from her own cup, and gives him a sidelong look. Yuuri feels on display somehow. Frowns down at his tea. His stomach tightens at the smell of it, and he forces himself to take a sip but regrets it instantly when the bitterness spreads across his tongue and has him trying not to gag. It’s thick, cloying, like Victor’s flowers, and Yuuri pulls a face at it. Can’t help himself from scrunching his nose up, grimacing at it.

Minako watches him with a curious edge to her flinty stare, and crosses her legs before saying, “sorry, I must have let it steep too long.”

“No, it’s fine,” Yuuri studies his cup, “I’ve been overindulging a bit lately. It’s coming back to bite me in the ass.”

“Oh, I know that feeling.” Minako laughs. Tinkly, lighter than her usual cackle.

It makes Yuuri smile and they share a moment; affection so heavy it should be burdensome hanging in the air. It feels like Mari mussing his hair, or an aunty pinching his cheek. Feels playful, but safe.

Yuuri pushes his glasses up his nose. And then he takes another (reluctant) sip of his tea.

“So have you decided what you’re doing next?”

“Mm,” Yuuri tries to hide his grimace and swallows the (bitter, so bitter, what the hell) tea, then answers, “nothing for the time being. I...kind of like the idea of taking some time out.”

Minako hums, drinks her own tea. Yuuri knows her well enough to know that she’s merely reloading, doesn’t saying anything until she swallows, sighs and tilts her head at him.

“Time out, hmm?”

He nods, again. Eyes her a little warily now. Has a faint suspicion he knows what’s coming and he feels queasy, but not anxious. Not sure where exactly _that’s_ coming from. Doesn’t quite know what to do with his hands, with the cup of tea he is now fairly certain he will not be able to drink, and he sinks back into the sofa, just as Minako says, “does that mean babies?”

The tea doesn’t _quite_ end up on Minako’s very expensive sofa, instead spilling over Yuuri’s own lap in an unpleasant, warm spread. He places the teacup back onto the tray with a remarkably restrained clatter, and then he accepts the tissue Minako offers him - her face a picture of amusement, though not mockery.

“I-” he inhales, pats uselessly at the stained denim, “we...aren’t. Planning to have them anytime soon, Minako-sensei.”

She leans forward, thrilled about...something.

“But you _are_ planning to have them?”

Yuuri’s fighting a losing battle against the tea on his pants, so he gives up. Tucks the tissue into his pocket to dispose of later, and sits back again.

The fact of the matter is that he and Victor _have_ talked about babies. Recently, in fact. During a bright, moonlit night in Switzerland, where they chatted and curled under covers, and drew their own future together in the stars. It’s not a burning desire, but they both want things. Want family, and a home, and to nurture something together - to lend their love to another life. They stayed up discussing it, revelling in one another’s wantings; Yuuri still, after all this time, elated that he and Victor want so much of the same things.

Then they’d gone back to doing what it was young lovers were supposed to do in warm, isolated cabins.

It seems...private though. Something still between Victor and himself. One of the many secret things only they know (like how Victor gets that awkward cowlick in his hair every morning, or how Yuuri sneezes if you kiss him just _there_ ) and he’s not sure he wants to share it yet.

So, he shrugs and smiles.

“We’ve not even discussed how we’d go about it, so…”

Minako nods, sagely. Then she says, “it’s pretty straightforward, you know. The whole divine pregnancy thing. You need three things: divine presence, statement of intent - can’t have any oopsie-gods floating about - and then... _supplication_.”

She winks at him over her teacup.

“Oh no,” Yuuri says, with a fairly strong inkling where this is about to go.

Yuuri doesn’t want to go there. Would rather go back to Russia and get kicked in the head by Yurio every day for a year than go to _that_ particular hell of a conversational bent.

“When your parents were trying-”

“ _Oh no_ ,” he says again.

His stomach also taking issue with Minako’s storytelling, it seems. The bitter taste on his tongue intensifies until it’s the only thing he can focus on, how it seems to reach down into him and set everything off-kilter. He leans forward, starts curling over himself in an attempt to soothe his stomach with the pressure, the weight of his own body.

Minako pauses on the other end of the sofa, and Yuuri feels her leaning closer. Shuts his eyes and tries deep breathing as he’s scrutinised.

“Yuuri? Are you okay?” Minako finally asks.

Yuuri nods.

Then, as politely as possible, he throws up.

 

Ten minutes, a glass of water, and a stern lookover from Minako later, Yuuri’s stomach starts to settle again. The bitter taste fading from his mouth, though the water has a strange, sharp quality to it. Yuuri feels, suddenly, quite tired and weak. As though his bones have turned to jelly. He refuses to let Minako clean up though, and sets about the job with a surprisingly well-stocked box of cleaning supplies and his teacher’s ever-present instruction.

(“What?” she says, when he looks from the box to her, “I teach four year olds, Yuuri. You’re not the first student to throw up in my home. Now, use the pink stuff with the white, that’ll stop it smelling.”)

It’s remarkably quick work, and eventually Minako’s left with a drying sofa that smells only _faintly_ like it’s been vomited on by nervous ballet student. Yuuri puts the cleaning box away while Minako spritzes something white and floral over the cushions; he retches, unthinkingly, and gets a curious look in return.

“It’s not like you to be so sensitive, Yuuri,” Minako says. And it sounds a lot like she’s asking a question.

Yuuri doesn’t have the answer though, and shrugs. Comes back to sit on the armchair, as fair from the artificial scent as possible.

“I must be getting old, Minako-sensei.” He smiles at her.

Minako looks him over, eyes still laserlike even after all this time. Eventually she smiles back, seems to find what she’s looking for, and says, “You know your mother, when she was pregnant she dreamed of you.”

Yuuri frowns, asks, “where’s this coming from?”

“Hush and let an old woman wax nostalgic,” Minako waves at him to shut up, which he does, and carries on, “she did for Mari too. But with you, she had really vivid dreams. She insists she felt you in there, before she knew she was pregnant.”

Yuuri very politely doesn’t vocalise the slight sense of ‘ew’ that that comment raises in him. Instead, he presses a hand to his stomach, presses down on the unease, and scratches his head with his free hand.

“She never told me. That’s... nice. I suppose.”

Minako shrugs, sips at her tea. Eyes still fixed on Yuuri, leaving him feeling exposed.

“It’s certainly something.”

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

He dreams again that night. Then the next, and the next. Never quite the same, but certain aspects unchanging: he’s alone, until he’s not, with a curious, electric energy following him like a puppy at his heels.

He dreams he’s in a house. Not the one he grew up in, or the one he lives in now, just a...generic house. It’s empty, bare, and as he wanders through it starts to fill up. Pictures on walls, bed with rumpled sheets, the sound of Victor and Makkachin and - something else. Each time it’s something different, something new creeping in. Yuuri finds himself playing hide and seek with a phantom, the curious little presence he felt before.

The dreams are vivid, but not unpleasant. Just sort of bewildering - not least because Yuuri, as a rule, never really remembered his dreams before now. Sleep was pretty much the only thing he did unthinkingly - though usually _getting_ to sleep was an issue. These dreams though, they leave him feeling like he’s missing something just as much as he feels like he’s found it. He wakes up with twitching fingers over his heart, or his stomach, and in an unruly, hot, snit.

Not the fun, prickly kind of hot either. He wakes up much the same way he falls out of a jump, and his skin burns up just the same - only instead of frustration, it’s...something else. Something alien.

Victor snores through it the first couple of times, face smushed into the pillow and long limbs trapping Yuuri close. Like a furnace, in sleep, and clingier than Makka. It’s normally a comfort, and much as Yuuri still melts a little at the sentiment, he’s too hot and ends up slithering out from Victor’s grasp to kick the bedsheet off and try to cool down.

He wonders, for a moment, if maybe he’s got a cold. Stares up at the ceiling and considers it - he doesn’t feel heavy, or achey, or congested. Just...warm. Warmer than normal. If he shuts his eyes and breathes, he can feel the sweet pull of Victor’s heart reaching for him; there’s a sad little groan and when he opens his eyes, Victor’s arms are sleepily searching for Yuuri again. Which is nice, but also, very much not what he needs right this moment.

So Yuuri escapes to the bathroom. Splashes cool water from the tap onto his face, tries to cool a little while he studies his own reflection.

After a few mornings punctuated by these breaks for bathroom freedom, Victor clamps onto Yuuri’s side as he tries to climb, stealthily, out of the bed. He blinks up at Yuuri and when he speaks, his voice is haggard with sleep. Low with concern, rough enough that it does that _thing_ to Yuuri’s insides.

“Yuuri?” He rumbles, thumb stroking Yuuri’s forearm. A single bud is curling into existence from behind Victor’s ear, and there’s a steady sort of worry bleeding out of him, into Yuuri’s consciousness.

So Yuuri bends down, kisses his temple, and gently extricates himself from Victor’s grip.

“Just going to the bathroom.”

“Are you sick?” Victor asks, “it’s the third time this week.”

Yuuri’s not quite sure how to answer that, given that since vomiting on Minako’s sofa (about which he is still mortified) he’s shown no other signs of illness or odd sensation; except for, maybe, the sudden desire to cram his face with every salty food item in their kitchen. But to be honest, he’s not entirely sure that’s not just the result of finally being off the on-season diet. He saw a muffin the other day that made him want to cry. (Which he did, after one taste, and proceeded to do between bites, because it was _just that good_. Victor had watched him with an expression somewhere between terror and affection, before silently offering Yuuri his own, untouched cupcake.)

“No,” he finally says, and slides out of the bed. Manages not to immediately climb back in despite Victor’s pitiful expression and the way his hand flexes and strains when Yuuri’s out of his reach.

“I’m not sick, just a bit hot.”

Victor, still half-asleep, manages to leer at him quite effectively from the bed.

“Oh no, Yuuri, I wonder what we could we do to fix that?” He gives a pointed look at Yuuri’s bed-shirt and pants, then stretches, showing off his own sleep attire. Which currently consists of playful orange petals bursting into rosebuds round his crown, and nothing else.

“I wonder,” Yuuri agrees, has to tear his eyes away from where the sheets have slid down Victor’s thighs.

Then the honey-rich smell of roses hits Yuuri with all the subtlety of nattō, and he darts for the bathroom, past a startled Victor calling his name.

_Ah,_ he thinks, as his stomach makes its presence suddenly and violently known, _knew it wasn’t a cold._

So Yuuri bows at the altar of the toilet and his stomach does what upset stomachs do. He retches twice, is on the third before Victor is there, one hot hand spread across the span of his lower back. It should be comforting, but it’s too hot, and too much, and Yuuri doesn’t have the heart to swat him away, even as he groans into the bowl.

Victor says nothing, for once. Instead pressing his forehead to Yuuri’s shoulder, and waiting the waves of nausea out. He strokes Yuuri’s skin, kisses and rocks him soothingly. The smell of his flowers sets Yuuri’s stomach off again, and Yuuri ends up having to push him away, weakly.

“Oh,” Victor says, sadly, and sits back from him.

Yuuri tries very hard to breathe without inhaling the flowery scent of him, has to swallow once, twice, before he’s certain nothing else is going to come up.

“Sorry,” he whispers, “just- I need a second.”

“Okay,” Victor’s eyes are like lasers, burning up Yuuri’s skin. Yuuri’s chest is tight, and when he presses his right hand absently to his heart, his ring seems to burn up - it sings, and he jolts back from the toilet which is, ultimately, a _terrible_ idea.

“Ugh,” Yuuri says, finally reaching a hand out, “Victor -”

Victor grasps his hand, wraps their fingers together and slides forward, goes to pull Yuuri into his arms then thinks better of it; he presses the back of his free hand to Yuuri’s forehead, then frowns. Replaces his hand with his lips - hums curiously, and apologises under his breath when Yuuri gags at the smell.

“You’re not hot,” Victor pauses, smiles a little slyly, “no more than usual-”

“ _Victor_ ,” Yuuri sags into Victor’s collarbone with a pitiful groan.

“Maybe it’s something you ate,” he finishes. Reaches for a towel off the side and offers it to Yuuri, who takes it, immediately shoves his face into the cool material.

_Probably shouldn’t have had that cupcake as well,_ Yuuri’s brain offers, sounding somewhat snotty for something inside his own head. Which is bullshit, Yuuri thinks - in the middle of Victor pressing careful, comforting kisses to his neck - because as out of sorts Yuuri feels, _it was a damn good cupcake_.

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

Strange things become the new normal after the bathroom incident, though one thing in particular starts to haunt Yuuri. Hangs off of him, like a thought dropped anchor in his mind.

His dreams are vivid and present, keeping him from feeling like he actually got any sleep at all. He’s queasy but not sick, though quite often actually _is_ sick, and Victor has taken the brunt of that one. Drowning himself in as bland a cologne as possible to cover the smell of his flowers. ( _God_ but Yuuri loves him so much. Is seriously considering suffering through the nausea just so Victor can go back to being the little spoon again.) There’s the spectre of bitterness, or an odd, metallic taste in his mouth - and the occasional, phantom breeze of cool air that seems to bring with it the call of the autumn. Yuuri keeps doodling little red stars at the bottom of receipts, and in book margins, and he starts hiding the stationery to stop this little habit from developing further. Unsettled in ways he can’t even word.

Through all this, his thoughts bob, relentlessly, around the day in Minako’s house. The teasing and the dancing around a subject he and Victor have only recently confirmed their feelings on. Yuuri feels tired, mentally and physically. His body seems to be at war with itself. At once ravenous, capable of devouring a cardboard box if it was the only thing in the cupboards, while also refusing anything that has something approaching a flavour.

The final straw though, the thing that finally breaks Yuuri, comes a week after his talk with Minako.

It’s Victor’s night to make dinner. He presents Yuuri with steaming bowls of katsudon, a kiss to the side of his mouth, and Yuuri has never been so hungry in his life. He nearly snaps Victor’s fingers taking his serving from him and when he leans forward, stomach growling, to inhale the gorgeous smell of his favourite food - Yuuri freezes.

“Something wrong?” Victor says, a piece of pork halfway to his mouth. His hair’s damp, and he’s clean-shaven. There’s no flowers, only the occasional peek of new, green stems twining through his hair.

Yuuri shakes his head. He knows Victor makes perfectly good katsudon - has done so, several times, ever since he persuaded Yuuri’s mother to part with her recipe. And the strange, almost metallic hint filling Yuuri’s mouth must just be his imagination, because Victor’s katsudon always smells good. Really good. So he takes his chopsticks and dives in, ignoring the handsome crinkle of Victor’s eyes when he smiles at Yuuri’s eagerness (can’t ignore the amused rhythm of his heartbeat alongside Yuuri’s own.) Yuuri demolishes a bite probably bigger than is polite, and it’s.

It’s _awful_.

“Yuuri?” Victor yelps, when Yuuri chokes.

He forces himself to swallow and _gags_ at the aftertaste. Then he stares, betrayed, at the bowl in his hands.

“The universe is taking Katsudon from me,” Yuuri says, calmer than he feels. Looks up at his husband’s startled face and adds,  “Victor, you may have to kill me.”

“What’s wrong, did I mess up the recipe somehow?” Victor asks, reaching out and taking Yuuri’s hand. He strokes his thumb over Yuuri’s wrist, a steady, searching touch. It’s a tic of his. A thing Victor does when he’s scared he’s screwed up somehow, to let Yuuri know that even if he doesn’t know what he’s done, he’s sorry. A secret message between them, and something just for _him_.

Yuuri, to his own horror, feels tears prickling his eyes.

“It’s fine,” he says thickly, as a hot, traitorous tear slides out of his eye, “I think I’m just going insane.”

Then another tear falls, and Yuuri can feel Victor’s distress (isn’t faring much better himself), and then it’s just frustration, irritation building up out of nowhere. Like the strange, straggling something that’s been haunting him since their return from Europe has cracked him open where his pricklier emotions live. Yuuri is still, steady, and calm. But his heart pounds and he can’t stop the tears.

Victor is out of his chair and crouching by Yuuri in an instant, pauses in reaching out until Yuuri reaches back. Then he pulls him into a breath-threatening embrace, clutching Yuuri like he’s something he doesn’t deserve to touch. His hands spread, comfortingly, across Yuuri’s back. His mouth hot when he presses a kiss to Yuuri’s neck.

Yuuri lets himself sink into it. Into him. Frustration welling up into a bead of want, the need to touch. Even the smell of Victor’s flowers isn’t enough to have him pull away. Instead he sighs, wetly, and buries his face in Victor’s shoulder. Lets his fingers slide under the hem of his shirt, settle at home on Victor’s waist. He focuses on the feel of him, on the awkward tug of Victor’s arms round him from his position on the floor; the way he is very carefully saying nothing, letting his body, his heart do the talking.

Yuuri loves him and lets himself weave that love, shroud the two of them in it, as it soothes the alien wave of emotion slowly receding inside him.

“It’s not the katsudon, is it?” Victor eventually whispers, from where he’s basically nuzzling into Yuuri.

Yuuri sniffles. Tears no longer falling, but cheeks hot, and feeling so very _fucking tired_.

“Not...entirely.” He sits back, runs one hand through his hair. He pauses, thinks about it, and then musses Victor’s hair with it.

Victor’s eyes are watery, but he pouts and releases him to straighten his fringe again.

“ _Yuuri_ ,” he whines, and something releases, unlatches inside Yuuri’s chest.

He laughs. Then he sighs. He rubs his face and he eyes the katsudon sadly.

“I’ve not been sleeping well. I think I’m just tired, but then…”

“Maybe you picked up something,” Victor clambers up, shoves Yuuri gently, until he moves enough to share the seat (and they perch, precariously, together), “why don’t you get some sleep? I can make something lighter for you when you wake up.”

Yuuri just about suppresses the petulant _don’t want something light, I want katsudon_ sitting on his tongue, but he doesn’t quite manage to catch his own scowl and Victor huffs a laugh. Pokes his cheek, which turns into a soft, dragging touch. Soothing and sympathetic.

“I could make you go to sleep y’know. Coach’s orders.”

“Technically, you’re not my coach anymore,” Yuuri mutters. Quieter than he intended. More full of feeling than sass. He turns, kisses Victor’s cheek, and nods. “But fine. I’ll...get some sleep.”

They stand at the same time, and Victor gathers the plates together. Shoos Yuuri towards the bedroom with a soft, “I’ll clean up, don’t worry.”

And somehow, Yuuri doesn’t.

 

He also doesn’t sleep. Cocooned in the darkness of the bedroom, wearing the bed sheets like a shield. He stares at the ceiling and listens to Makkachin snoring from where she’s sprawled, half over him. Her soft muzzle rests over his belly button and it’s oddly comforting, helping to quell the faint queasiness that’s been ever-present the last few weeks.

What Yuuri wouldn’t give to have her capacity to just go to sleep.

“You don’t know how lucky you are,” he whispers, to no response, and is otherwise left to his own thoughts. The faint sounds of Victor cleaning dishes one room over soothing his rattled nerves.

Which is, he supposes, part of the problem. Yuuri feels like he’s turning into nothing but nerves. He breathes carefully out, and then in. Has about eight lifetime’s worth of breathing exercises saved somewhere in his brain (that’s a joke in itself, he thinks, a god with an anxiety disorder) and tries to shove the lingering, lodging thoughts aside. To recapture a nicer feeling. Maybe the ones from a few weeks ago, when they first got back from Switzerland.

Maybe the ones _from_ Switzerland, when they curled together and talked and loved. Separate from the world, from other people (save for the occasional reminder that Chris’ family not only existed, but were very, very weird.) Hidden from any expectations. Where, in the face of a life unfurling before them off the ice, they -

Yuuri’s stomach turns cold, rather than sickly. The same heavy, tugging from the dream on the sofa. He blinks, unseeing, while Minako’s words come unbidden to him. Like she’s right there in the room with him (and god, but that’s a scary thought, that Minako could be summoned by imagining her.)

Three things, Yuuri thinks. Mouths to himself in the darkness as his brain rattles through them like a shopping list: 

_Divine presence_

(Together they’re about...one-and-a-bit love gods, he thinks?)

_Statement of intent_

(“You want babies?” “I want all the babies” is probably not the most serious statement there is, but it’s certainly got intent)

And then.

_Supplication._

 

Yuuri pauses. There’s a moment, a blissful one, before he remembers just what exactly followed his and Victor’s conversation on the matter, and okay. Yeah. There had definitely been some supplicating.

It slots into place. Puzzle pieces to a jigsaw he didn’t even fucking know he was filling. The fatigue, the vomiting, the sudden, cruel inability to eat katsudon (among other things). The frayed ends of his emotions leaking out, spilling over, and resulting in tears far more than he’s quite comfortable with.

He looks down at Makkachin, still asleep, and remembers every single instance of her bumping, pointedly, against his middle since they got back to Hasetsu. The way she follows him even closer, eyes bright and loving and alert, as if guarding something precious.

“What do you think, Makka?” He whispers, stroking behind one floppy ear and earning a pleased little grumble.

Yuuri takes it as an agreement, and carries on stroking her soft head as he considers this new conclusion. It’s a possibility, not a given. An admittedly strong possibility, given the evidence. And really, it just seems like the universe is laughing at him at this point. It’s taken one look at his life, decided that now’s its time to shine and promptly thrown him a curveball.

Fate is fickle. It’s not a cliché, he knows it from experience. All the signs point one way.

“Oh my god, the dreams,” he says, as he discovers that his free hand has found its way to sit over the slight softening of his belly.

The newly vivid dreams which, now he thought about, all had a certain... _something_ wrong with them. Or right - he’s not quite sure which way he feels about it right this instant. Just that he feels, and he needs to do something with those feelings that isn’t 'vomit' or 'burst into humiliating tears'.

Yuuri sits upright, dislodging Makkachin, who whines up at him grumpily, and he reaches for his phone. Brings up google - even though he doesn’t need to, knows the little pharmacy near the market is open all hours no matter what, knows that it’ll be Okada-san on the till, and that they’ll give Yuuri a knowing look that follows him out of the shop if he does this. Still though, he googles ‘Opening Hours Hasetsu Pharmacy’, finds the right store, and stares at the numbers on the screen.

Stares until they blur, until they don’t make sense anymore. While inside his own head, he fights with himself. Can’t decide if this is ridiculous, if he’s so tired from this nonsense that he’s grasping at straws. If it’s really happening, if he’s ready for this sort of thing to be happening. So soon, so sudden, so...so…

So _small_ , the tremulous, little presence that he can’t deny. A vibration, a flutter. A curiosity that isn’t coming from himself. Somewhere in the background, he can hear Victor singing, off-key, as he cleans up.

And Yuuri decides.

Victor looks baffled when Yuuri dashes out of the house, jamming on coat and shoes, Makkachin at his heels. He looks even more confused when Yuuri gets back, out of breath, with Makkachin positively quivering in excitement.

“Yuuri, what-” Victor starts, stops when Yuuri raises his hand.

Yuuri takes off his coat in silence, stares at his socked feet before pulling the bag from his pocket and slumping, finally, onto the sofa. Peers up to find Victor’s eyes round and blue and worried which, oh, he doesn’t like _that_.

“Three things,” Yuuri says, then mentally smacks himself because what he meant to say was something comforting, like ‘please sit down’, or ‘I love you’, or ‘yeah so I think maybe you got me pregnant because we had an unprotected conversation about having children that one time’.

He gestures uselessly and Victor, ever the Yuuri interpreter, sits down next to him. Presses their knees together, takes Yuuri’s hand to drop a kiss onto his knuckles. There’s the pink curl of a cherry blossom behind his ear now, and Yuuri steels himself to try again.

“I think I know what’s wrong with me,” he looks into Victor’s eyes, at the concern and affection that make him feel so much bigger and braver than he thinks he should be. “Well, not wrong, per se. But, I, um…”

Victor squeezes his hand, helpfully. Says nothing, lets Yuuri work it out in his own head.

“So, Minako-sensei told me, a week ago, that there’s three things you need for a divine pregnancy.”

“Do I want to know why she told you this?” Victor whispers, and Yuuri laughs.

“What makes you think I know?”

“Fair point. You were saying?”

“So there’s three things. Divine presence,” he looks, meaningfully at Victor, who stares blankly back, “you have to...state your intent. And then you need supplication.”

Victor nods. His thumb presses against the bone of Yuuri’s wrist. He looks intrigued and attentive and. Utterly uncomprehending. So Yuuri tries again.

“Do you remember the conversation we had? In Chris’ cabin. On the third night.”

“Technically it’s a chalet. And...the one about your retirement plans?” Victor screws his face up in thought, and it’s frankly adorable. He has a crease between his eyebrows when he does it, that Yuuri wants to press his thumb to - wants to press a kiss too, and will Victor to understand without Yuuri putting it into words.

He could just blurt it out, he supposes. Slap the contents of the bag into his lap and announce it.

“And then afterwards, you did that thing with your tongue?” Victor says, sounding far away.

Yuuri flushes. With pride, not embarrassment. He’s never embarrassed about his ability to reduce The Victor Nikiforov to begging. But he nods, and watches Victor work through the memory. Piece together its connection to this moment here, and now. Yuuri watches curious blankness spread across Victor’s face. Realisation falling like shutters over his eyes.

He looks at Yuuri, at their hands and back again. Says, “ah.” 

He twists their hands one way, then the other, and says, “ _ah_ ” again.

Yuuri starts rustling in the bag with his free hand, fingers wrapping around the box.

“I mean, it could just be nonsense, but. The signs fit, and well. You’re an actual love god so-”

Victor’s head snaps up, and he blinks down at Yuuri.

“I’m...not a love god?” He says, though he doesn’t sound entirely sure of it.

Yuuri pauses, and stares back. Says, after a moment, “...what.”

The blossoms in Victor’s hair lengthen, turn dark, and he smiles a little playfully. A little shakily.

“I’m not a god. My mother is.”

“So,” Yuuri considers this, “your mother’s a love god?”

“Fertility. Hence,” Victor gestures at the flowers in his hair.

And oh. That makes...a lot of sense. A lot more sense, actually, than him just being particularly lovely. Yuuri is alternating between wanting to bury his face in his hands and never come out, and offering up a solemn prayer of ‘what the fuck’. Because before, this theory was still just a theory. Something that could be wrong, that could be ruled out.

Now, Victor’s apparently a beacon of fertility, and the theory is now _likely_.

The queasiness comes back, though Yuuri’s not sure it’s - he suspects it’s part Shaken World View rather than - than _that_.

He exhales, squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. When he opens them, Victor is watching him with concern etched back into his pretty face. Yuuri pulls his hand out of the pharmacy bag, raises the box up between them, in front of Victor’s face. So that the side with the picture of the white stick, a blue marker, is turned towards him.

“Hence.” Yuuri says.

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

They sit on the bedroom floor while they wait for the result. Yuuri cross-legged, next to the bed, and Victor kneeling across from him. Looking like he wants to come closer, but isn’t sure he can. The white stick sits between Yuuri’s ankles. Like a chalice, or an ankle-bracelet. The kind they use for people under house-arrest. He's not sure how he feels about it so he's pointedly not looking down at it.

Victor smiles at Yuuri, something apologetic in the turn of his lips. Then he opens his mouth to speak, pauses, and shuts it. Stressed, white petals now fluttering over his shoulders, and Yuuri knows what he’s feeling because he _feels the same_.

Yuuri extends a hand, and Victor surges to take it; slides over, seats himself next to Yuuri in what’s probably meant to be a smooth move, but is mostly just him sagging, slumping into Yuuri’s side. It’s endearing - like a koala - except that there’s still the tense, nervous tightness between them.

Not between them, Yuuri thinks, but shared. _He’s as nervous as I am._

“You really thought I was a love god?” Victor finally whispers, and Yuuri shoves him. More affectionate than annoyed, but still.

“You never told people what you were,” Yuuri replies, “I just sort of extrapolated from the data.”

“The data being that I’m lovely?”

Yuuri sighs, tilts his head to rest against Victor’s. The teasing softens the cord pulled taut between them; love woven through the nervousness and if he concentrates - something a little like hope. He takes Victor’s hand in his and squeezes.

“The data being that I loved you.”

Victor breathes out like he’s been punched. Then he buries his face in Yuuri’s neck and kisses the skin there. Soothes Yuuri, grounds him, as he always does with the barest touch.

Sat like that, hearts and hands interwoven, Yuuri has a sudden thought. A knowing, that spreads from the depths of his belly. He remembers golden lines, spreading out on the television screen before him - only now they curl through his dreams, through a crown of red stars and something cold. Yuuri knows, just like he knows that Victor loves him and he loves Victor, that whatever the result is, this is _something they can do_.

For a second he pushes back against the thought in a little, petulant rebellion. Because if he gets excited about this, it’s accepting that this could be happening without their (witting) input. He had thought that maybe he’d get to plan this aspect of his life, but fate has other plans, apparently, and he’s a little reluctant to give into them. To give fate the satisfaction. (He’s met Fate - he’s a cousin twice removed on his mother’s side, and a complete dick.)

But then Victor snorts, laughter bubbling out of him, and Yuuri turns his head to look at him.

“What?”

“I’m just flattered,” Victor pulls away, looking very smug as he gives Yuuri a bright smile, “that you’d think so highly of me.”

Yuuri carefully doesn’t say anything and instead turns his heated face away. Stares at the wall across from them and tries not to sneak a peek down, down at the little white stick on which their future could well rest.

Then, he feels a tug. A plucking of heartstrings, and when he looks back Victor’s face has turned serious. Eyes lowered somewhere around Yuuri’s collarbone.

“If it’s...” he waves their entwined hands at the direction of the test, “...if you _are_. I know it’s not what we talked about, exactly, but…”

He huffs, raises his gaze to meet Yuuri’s and it’s startling. The clarity in his eyes leaving Yuuri breathless.

Victor drops his voice low, and says, “you don’t have to. If you don’t want to.”

_Oh_ , Yuuri thinks. _There’s_ the dissonant note in the chorus of their heartbeats. Something hiding under the tangle of emotion that spills out of Victor and it’s not just anticipation or nervousness about a life change. It's something deeper, something older. Something Yuuri is constantly surprised he can elicit in Victor.

He’s afraid of being rejected, somehow. As if a baby, of all things, is what’ll send Yuuri running for the hills. He's giving Yuuri an out, as if Yuuri even wants or needs one.

Yuuri, floundering, snaps, “I know that.”

Victor flinches, and Yuuri tries again.

“That's not what I meant to say." He sighs, rearranges his words as they come out his mouth. "Do you think I’d be here, doing this, if I didn’t want to?”

And at this Victor gives him A Look. The one with the crooked eyebrow, that he reserves for Makkachin when she’s pretending she hasn’t already been fed, and Yuuri when he’s being obtuse. It’s probably supposed to be aloof and rakish and whoever told Victor that it was a good look on him is a filthy liar who Yuuri would like to thank. Profusely. After kissing said look off Victor’s face.

“I love you so I won’t answer that.” Victor says primly.

Yuuri screws up a lifetime of self-doubt and second-guessing, and pushes past the anxiety - the What Ifs and the Oh GOD What Ifs - to dig at the hope he can feel still there, in Victor’s heart.

“This is a bit...a _lot_ sudden. But I wouldn’t be here, sitting on the floor with you, if I didn’t think were ready for it.”

Victor, and his petals, perk up. Brighten as the hope grows, turns opalescent in the light of his smile. He flushes a charming pink, looks down, and then his eyes go round. Wide.

“Oh,” he says, gaze near Yuuri’s feet.

And Yuuri knows what that ‘oh’ means. Is the world’s foremost expert on interpreting the sounds and noises of Victor Nikiforov. Yuuri _knows_ , and Yuuri looks down too. He looks back up again. His lungs have apparently taken a sudden, immediate vacation because the air is knocked out of him; he looks at Victor, whose shedding petals have turned the same blue as the two lines on the stick.

“Oh.” Yuuri agrees, then Victor’s arms are round him, his mouth brushing Yuuri’s brow.

Yuuri can’t help it - he laughs. An embarrassing, eager sounding thing. His face burns, pulls with the brightness of _feeling,_ and he’s smiling - wobbly but real. Then he pulls Victor’s shirt, demands a kiss that’s greedy, that feels like home; bleeds all the nervousness, all the weight of the world into it. And Victor lets him, pushes back and creeps tender hands over Yuuri’s body, under his shirt.

“What do you want to do?” Victor gasps, wetly, when they pull apart. Yuuri rending, pitifully, at the material of Victor’s t-shirt while he recovers.

He feels taut with...with joy. Elation. Feels drunk and relieved and afraid.

Yuuri feels like he could win eight more gold medals right now, this minute, and he whispers, into the space between them.

“I want-" he shudders, cuts himself off with gasp, and then Victor’s moving. Shifting them sideways and round, so they’re sidelong on the floor, pressing kisses to Yuuri’s cheeks, his lips, his temple.

Waiting. Always waiting for Yuuri to bridge the gap. Yuuri swallows down a sob, presses his thumb to Victor’s sharp cheekbone. The touch grounds him, pushes the storm feelings aside. In clarity, he can see the months ahead laid out like the vivid threads of a tapestry.

“I want to tell my parents first.” He finally manages.

Victor’s hand sweeps under Yuuri’s shirt, over his hip and rests at the base of his spine.

“Okay,” he says, and spreads his other hand over Yuuri’s stomach. Still flat, though soft with off-season pudge, and Yuuri imagines he can feel it - _them_ \- in there. Curious and sweet and theirs.

Victor looks thoughtful, then troubled.

“What is it?” Yuuri asks, pressing close.

“Oh, just,” Victor winces, “my mother...probably already knows.”

“Your mother is in St. Petersburg,” Yuuri points out - then pauses. Because until about forty minutes ago, he thought Victor was a full-blown deity and maybe the elusive mother Yuuri’s never quite managed to meet is secretly a houseplant or something. It’d explain the flowers, at least. And the spider plant in the bathroom’s always looked shady as hell.

“My mother the fertility goddess?” Victor reiterates, “she tends to know about these things.”

“Your mother who is a person and definitely not a plant.” Yuuri mutters, earning a bewildered look from Victor, which is actually pretty gratifying, given the circumstance.

He leans into Victor. Chest to chest, heart to heart. He puffs out a breath, unsettles a vivid, velvet petal from Victor’s shoulder. Yuuri reaches out with his heart and Victor reaches back in return. A steady thumping pattern alongside his own.

“Technically,” Victor says, “I think this counts as going into the family business.”

Yuuri can’t help snorting and flicks a petal from Victor’s hair.

“Technically,” he whispers, “yeah.”

 

\- - -   - - -   - - - 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My original intent was to rewrite this chapter by writing around what I had, so as to add the stuff I missed out first time around. What actually happened was that I looked at what I had, looked at what I planned to do with the later chapters, and ended up rewriting the entire thing from the ground up because apparently I hate myself.
> 
> I really hope this rewrite is still in the spirit of the fic, and that you enjoyed it! I am much happier with this version of the chapter, even though it’s nowhere near perfect. It’s much closer to what I originally planned, and was written without the somewhat foggy influence of flu-related delirium. And also, allows for about 10x The Fluff.
> 
> This chapter title is a bit of a two-edged thing, because the Green Man is an old symbol/figure tied to nature and the harvest, which seemed fitting and clever.
> 
> It’s also the title of a song by Type O-Negative, which is what I _actually_ named it after.
> 
> I believe we call that a happy accident. Much like Baby Viktuuri in this universe.


	2. Restraint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“It’s funny you don’t have any cravings.”_
> 
>  
> 
> _Victor coughs at Yuuri’s side, and Yuuri elbows him before turning to Minako._
> 
>  
> 
> _She’s eyeing both of them with a look that’s worryingly sharp; Yuuri is reminded of Yurio’s cat, flashing its soft belly before sinking pinprick teeth into his hand._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote half of this while delirious with a cold, which is why it's a day late, so apologies :c
> 
> Please note the change in rating to explicit! If explicit sexual scenes aren't your thing, then this chapter probably won't be for you. 
> 
> I had a lot of fun with this chapter, even as it became an amalgamation of both prompts. Hopefully this is as enjoyable to read as it was to write :D

\- - -   - - -   - - -

The bath is perfect. Not too hot, but warm enough to ease Yuuri’s aching muscles. Victor, being unfairly tall, has to bend his legs to fit in, and he makes a solid cushion for Yuuri as he slides into the perfumed water. Purpling little petals float between their knees, stick to Yuuri’s skin when he shifts and unsettles the surface.

He lets his hands slide ponderously over the bump, half-disbelief and half-soothing. He wonders if the baby can feel it, somehow. Hopes they can feel the already aching love he has for them.

Yuuri is four months gone, and still can’t bring himself to say the words ‘pregnant’, and ‘I’m’ aloud. Words have power, and saying it makes it real. Makes it something the universe can take away from him, can hurt him with.

“We should think of something to call them.” Victor says, gently into his ear.

His fingers join Yuuri’s, petting and circling. His heart is pressed between Yuuri’s shoulders and the steady rhythm gives Yuuri an anchor. He cups water with one hand, lets it pour over Yuuri’s belly and strokes the petals across it, like a crown.

Names. They have to think of names.

Yuuri’s fingers still, and he watches Victor’s hands, his slow, steady movements.

“...I don’t know,” he finally says, hating himself for being so woefully unprepared. “I can’t even wrap my head around names at the minute.”

“Okay.”

Victor presses his forehead to Yuuri’s temple. Doesn’t push him. Doesn’t sound judgmental.

“But I think we still need to think of something to call this,” he whispers into Yuuri’s skin, and sweeps one hand over the bump. “I refuse to call our baby ‘It’.”

Yuuri sighs, and hopes that It can feel how much it’s wanted, how much it’s loved.

“Yuuko called the triplets Nudge,” he offers, then smiles and tilts his head back towards Victor who smiles back, “though maybe we shouldn’t invite that on ourselves.”

“Hmm.” Victor agrees. He traces his fingertips in a delicate shape across the bump and there’s a fluttering, butterfly sensation underneath it.

It’s confirmation for Yuuri that this is _their_ baby. That part of Victor is inside him - part of Victor no one else can have. That the baby has inherited Yuuri’s love for Victor, for his touch.

“We could call them Bump.” He suggests.

“Too obvious,” Victor pouts over his shoulder, says “isn’t that right, _lapochka_?” towards the bump.

Yuuri stage whispers down at himself, “and we don’t want to be too obvious, do we?”

Victor makes an offended sound, bites at his jaw and spreads his fingers wide, protective.

“Ignore your father. If he had his way we’d be calling you Hashtag Katsuforov.”

“I told you, _Phichit_ is to blame for that one,” Yuuri sags, flicks water, “I just didn’t...stop him.”

He gets an amused look in reply, and Yuuri kisses it off Victor’s face. Slides further into the water, until the bump is submerged completely.

Giving it a name, even if just a playful nickname, is still too close for comfort. He imagines that somewhere, out there, there’s a list of people who the universe plans to kick in the face - and that he is on that list, quietly unnoticed towards the bottom. He doesn’t want to do anything to gain any more attention. Has met Fate enough times to know that you _do not_ want to gain the guy’s notice anymore than you absolutely have to.

Victor tightens his arms around him - around them. Seems to know the anxious tattoo of Yuuri’s thoughts, pressing kisses to his neck and shoulder.

“We don’t have to tell them, you know. Not until we have to.” He whispers.

Yuuri rolls his eyes.

“I’m sure my parents will love it if I just turn up in five months with a baby.”

“You could blame me. In Russia the parents don’t tell anyone until they can’t hide it,” Victor sounds a little subdued. Concerned.

Yuuri twists, splashes water over the sides of the bath as he tries to give Victor a soft, searching look.

“Do you _want_ to tell them?”

Victor considers this. Purses his lips and curls his fingers like armour round Yuuri’s belly button. Then he puffs out a wistful little breath and smiles.

“Yuuri, I want to tell everyone. All the time. Who wouldn’t want to shout from the rooftops that Katsuki Yuuri is having their baby?”

Yuuri blushes. Can feel the pink spread over his body; should be used to this by now, to Victor’s tendency to say things like that so easily.

There’s a butterfly of movement under their hands, and Yuuri sits back against Victor’s chest, coos and strokes until the movement calms.

He shuts his eyes, and visualises the little person curled under his fingers. Tries to let himself imagine the future without the fear that it’s going to be taken from them. Imagines big eyes and tiny fingers. Their child, their life and love coming to fruition inside Yuuri’s own body.

Yuuri lets the movement of Victor’s hands lull him into a doze. He sleeps to the sound of water and Victor’s low voice, talking to their child.

 

_ _ _   _ _ _   _ _ _

It hits him while they’re staying at the inn, curled together in the family room, sleepy with the weight of katsudon and _home_.

Yuuri’s parents are ecstatic about the news, and the inn has been suffused with a happy, expectant atmosphere since they found out; his mother is to blame, most likely, bleeding out love and having it reflected back at her in turn.

Victor’s hair is lacking in flowers - the blooms always thrown by the change in time zones - and he has a hand curled protectively over Yuuri’s stomach. Connected to him like a third arm.

It starts under his hand, sudden like a nettle sting. Skin-deep need turning round and round; Yuuri thinks about it, thinks until he realises it’s consuming him, spreading through his body, and he’s almost immobilised by it. For a terrifying second, he thinks it’s the baby - thinks the universe has caught up to him, has decided to come into his home and tear it down around him.

He sits up in a jolt, hands coming to cradle his stomach and knocking Victor’s arm away. Almost immediately, the feeling stops. Prickling turning into static and warmth, he shifts and-

 _Oh_ . _It’s not that sort of warmth._

Yuuri nudges Victor, who mumbles, sleepily, before blinking his eyes open to look at him.

“Hmm?”

“Victor,” Yuuri whispers, “I have a _craving_.”

Victor straightens, places his hand back over Yuuri’s navel and strokes the still small swell of Yuuri’s belly soothingly as he yawns.

“What is it, zaichik? I’ll take Makka down to the shop -”

Yuuri takes Victor’s hand off his stomach and places it, firmly, between his legs. He rolls his hips a little, just enough for the smallest, pleasant pressure, and sighs.

Victor squeezes gently. His expression is soft, sleepy, but his eyes darken when Yuuri wriggle close, against him - makes sure he feels how much Yuuri _needs_.

“Oh. I don’t think they sell that at the shop,” Victor says, inanely.

Yuuri huffs and shoves him back, sits in his lap and presses _down_ where Victor is very nearly as hard as he is. He bites his lip, gives Victor a look from under his lashes - Victor looks like a rabbit who is just _thrilled_ to be caught in headlights.

“You remember what the doctor said about cravings, _Vitya_ ,” there’s a strangled little noise from Victor’s throat, and Yuuri rocks into him as he continues, “it’s not good to ignore them.”

“Last week you wanted to eat an entire ball of elastic bands,” Victor points out.

Yuuri shoves his hand under his shirt and makes a show of dragging the material up, over his belly, and his chest.

“Yes, absolutely, doctor’s orders,” Victor nods and swoops up to catch Yuuri in a heated kiss.

They have maybe two minutes of uninterrupted making out before the floor panel outside the door creaks, and Yuuri yanks his shirt back down, sits back from Victor’s lips so fast that he almost falls out of his lap.

When he turns to the door, his mother is smiling at them, the picture of benevolence. She coughs a little; Victor yanks his hands out from under Yuuri’s shirt, makes a show of petting and inspecting his belly.

Yuuri has a very sudden, serious fantasy about the ground swallowing him whole.

“Is everything alright?” She asks, eyes glittering behind her glasses.

He nods, mutely, and she beams at them, informs them that their room’s set up if they’re planning to stay the night. Then she shoots an amused little look between them and flits away; Yuuri’s half convinced he can hear her chuckling to herself, and he’s not sure if that’s disturbing or just odd.

He turns back to Victor. There’s pink petals on his shoulders, matching his flushed cheeks.

Victor strokes the swell of Yuuri’s stomach and arches an elegant eyebrow.

“Upstairs?”

“ _Upstairs.”_

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

Yuuri knows it’s going to be a long day when his father looks at his bed-head, the itchy lovebite on his neck, and says, over the breakfast table, “you know, when your mother was pregnant -”

“Oh no, look at that,” Yuuri stands up from the table, “I absolutely have to be somewhere else right now.”

His father’s laughter follows him back up the stairs, still audible when he finds Victor sitting up and running a hand through his hair.

Victor smiles at him, and Yuuri’s gut twists. There’s pillow creases on his cheek, and his hair is flat on one side.

Yuuri climbs into his lap and kisses him until there’s no air left for words.

When he makes it back downstairs it’s with a smug Victor in tow and a fresh bitemark on his left asscheek. He sits down gingerly, then politely asks his mother to pass him the tea.

He pointedly ignores the amusement radiating from behind his father’s newspaper.

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

On the walk to town he gets funny looks. Strange, wistful glances. Yuuri burrows into his coat and clings to Victor’s arm around him. Points out the unusual number of seagulls flitting about - they seem to stare at Yuuri with a quiet, unnatural intelligence.

He turns his focus back to Victor after the fifth bird he spots appears to notice him looking, and ducks behind a bin with a squawk.

Victor’s blossoming peach-coloured flowers today, the smell of the sea undercutting his usual earthy scent. He’s the picture of easy happiness, gives Yuuri small, honest smiles whenever he looks across at him. Sneaks his hand under his jacket to press along the bump.

It flutters, again. And Yuuri can’t decide if he’s amused they’re already so responsive to Victor’s touch, or offended that they don’t seem to get so excited for himself.

Yuuri feels too big for his own skin - his trousers are beginning to cut into his hips a little, and his shirts chafe, and each painful drag of material has him hyper-aware of his own body. Of the ways it’s beginning to change. The weight of meaning pressing down on the tingling, self-consciousness where before he felt bloated and awkward.

(There is purpose, and there is reason, and he can’t stop the way his heart jumps when he looks in the mirror and can see the curvature there, the soft little swell.)

(Victor has, in the last few weeks, started sidling over while Yuuri admires himself. Sliding his hands round, over Yuuri’s own, and cooing unashamed nonsense into Yuuri’s neck and jaw.)

Yuuri slides his fingers between Victor’s, and silently asks the bump to calm down, behave for the doctor’s appointment.

The receptionist at the surgery fumbles and blushes when they book in, stares up at Victor before cutting her gaze to Yuuri and looking, suddenly, terrified. Yuuri smiles, apologetically, and she squeaks before telling them to take a seat, where they wait to be called through.

Dr. Ito has known Yuuri since he was five, and hid behind his mother’s legs until he could be bribed out with colourful stickers. In all that time she’s been the picture of polite professionalism, and Yuuri’s restless energy simmers down while she makes the perfunctory checks, calmly explains the appointment schedule for the next few months.

Her voice is nearly as soothing as Victor’s presence next to him, and Yuuri leans into his side, lets him trace patterns over his belly.

(Dr. Ito’s gaze flicks to the motion briefly, then back to Yuuri’s face, an unfamiliar _something_ tugging at her mouth.)

“Of course, with divine couplings, there tend to be fewer complications,” she very nearly smiles reassuringly at him, “but obviously we’ll want to keep an eye on things.”

Victor is nodding attentively, and Yuuri feels heated all over. He stares at the roll of stickers on the doctor’s desk.

“Yuuri?”

Victor’s voice draws him back into the conversation, and Yuuri sits straighter, fixes his gaze back on Dr. Ito.

“Do you have any questions?”

He doesn’t think he can ask the question that springs to mind; Victor’s fingers are an electric trail on him, and the reality of this, of _everything_ has desire bubbling up his spine.

Victor looks at him with wide eyes, cheeks turning pink with the flowers he’s wreathed for himself.

There’s the sound of a throat clearing, and they jump, look back at the doctor, who’s very, definitely looking amused now.

“Everything’s fine?” He asks.

Dr. Ito spreads her hands as she answers. A strange, soothing gesture.

“From what I can tell. You’re not reporting anything that gives me cause for concern,” she shoots him a sidelong look, “though if you find yourself having any other unusual cravings do let us know.”

Yuuri gives Victor a look he hopes declares _That Was One Time,_ then turns back.

“Are you able to tell if-” he trails off, unsure of how to phrase it.

Unsure if it’s something he even really needs to know. With each little bubbly movement in his belly he cares less and less for what their baby is going to be, only cares that it is. That they exist, that they’re there and theirs.

“If it’s divine?” Victor finishes for him, and Yuuri curls his hand round his stomach.

(For a moment he thinks he can feel energy thrumming there, a strange sense of understanding, of waiting. Like the baby wants to hear the answer too.)

Dr. Ito nods, begins piling leaflets onto her desk.

“Sometimes. It depends. With two demi-god parents it’s unlikely the baby won’t inherit some sort of divinity, but usually you can’t tell until they’re up and walking around.”

She gives Yuuri a little look, and he swallows.

He didn’t find out until he was fourteen, and wondering why all his friends seemed to be falling in love around him, why birds and other small animals would sit and watch him with trembling devotion. Yuuri didn’t particularly enjoy the Disney princess aspect of his genetic heritage, but he had to admit that as far as side-effects went, it was mostly harmless.

“If you want us to test fo-”

“No, that’s. I don’t want...”

He doesn’t mean to interrupt, but it comes out of him before he thinks about it. She doesn’t seem bothered, only raises her eyebrows slightly, taps her pen against the small mountain of leaflets beside her.

“I just want to know that it- _they’re_ okay.”

Victor’s grip on him tightens, and Yuuri sighs, holds his belly almost reverently. Dr. Ito, after a moment of quiet, gives him a sudden, startling smile.

“Divine pregnancies present, on the whole, a lot less risk. To baby and parent. You seem like you’re taking every care to ensure your baby’s well-being.”

He can feel Victor preening beside him. Wants to burst with the swell of ridiculous affection he feels for him; with the way Dr. Ito’s words press against the wound of his anxiety like a band-aid.

Victor shifts and moves his arm. His fingers brush Yuuri’s hip, the base of his spine and that strange, stinging need from before spreads through Yuuri.

He tries to focus on the doctor’s words as she starts listing off resources, research and preparation rolling off her tongue. It’s impossible with Victor’s hot hand sitting treacherously close to his skin.

“Where’s the bathroom?” Yuuri blurts out.

Two sets of eyes bore into him and he fidgets.

“Morning sickness,” he offers with an apologetic little smile. Tries to turn the way he’s shivering excitedly into a feverish little shudder - Dr. Ito gives him directions (“outside on your left, where it’s always been”), and he hurries out with a squeeze of Victor’s hand.

He splashes water on his face, stares at himself  in the mirror and takes a deep breath.

“You will not jump Victor in front of the doctor.” He tells his reflection.

Even his reflection seems a little disbelieving.

He comes out of the bathroom just as Victor’s leaving the consultation room, lighting up when he sees Yuuri and carrying leaflets under one arm. He takes Yuuri’s hand with his free one, kisses it, and when it’s returned to Yuuri, there’s a bright sticker on the back declaring ‘I was brave!’ in bubbly text.

Yuuri stares at it, then at Victor.

Victor pulls two more out of his pocket.  
  
“God, I love you,” Yuuri says, and wraps himself around Victor like an octopus.

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

They take a detour to the beach on the way back to the inn, where they watch the grey waves roil and froth in the wind.

The breeze feels freeing. Feels like opportunity. Yuuri feels lighter, somehow, in the face of nature.

 _I can do this,_ he thinks, directs the thoughts down, prays for them to impress, _we can do this._

He looks at the sea, and thinks of Victor. Thinks of their home together, of Makkachin thumping her tail across them to wake them up in the morning.

(Thinks of being woken up by plaintive little cries, of soothing that sadness, of being a source of comfort for the tiny heart he holds in his hands.)

Victor plasters himself along Yuuri’s back, holds him and refuses to let go, pressing petulant little kisses to his neck, bringing him out of his reverie.

Yuuri laughs as they awkwardly penguin walk across the sand. Eventually he staggers, slips, and Victor’s all that holds him upright. One strong arm round his chest, the other curved like a shield over his stomach. The muscle of his arm tense, tight as he supports him.

The breath leaves Yuuri’s chest in a rush. The seam of his jeans is agonising, and he’s almost impressed at how quickly he’s gone from zero to a hundred.

“We need to have sex. Right now.”

Victor’s grip tightens and he inhales sharply.

They must make a picture to any passers-by. Stopped like a freeze-frame, falling but not quite.

“Sand gets everywhere,” Victor finally says, as he carefully pulls them both to the soft ground. Rolls Yuuri so he lands on top of Victor’s chest and cradles his face gently, like he’s something precious.

Yuuri wants so hard it’s _painful_.

“We can- back at the-”

Victor kisses him, slides his hands down Yuuri’s jaw, his neck. A hot trail across his ribs, then slipping to the button on Yuuri’s jeans, palming him until he whining.

“Okay, we need,” he pulls back, rolls off Victor and tries to will the heat flooding his veins away with gulping breaths, “we need a bed, we need. We need to never leave the bedroom for about eight months.”

Victor shifts so he’s lying on his side, propped up one elbow over Yuuri.

Yuuri shuts his eyes. Tries not to notice how Victor has created a very convenient shield with his body, how they probably just look like a couple lying together on the sand and relaxing to the sound of the waves.

Victor leans over, presses a sweet kiss to Yuuri’s forehead. Takes his free hand on a slow tour from Yuuri’s throat to his chest, from his heart to his belly. Leans down, awkwardly, to press a kiss to the bump, before sitting back again.

Then he sticks his hand down Yuuri’s pants.

Yuuri manages not to jump, but his eyes fly open and he swears; Victor wraps his cool hand around Yuuri’s cock and strokes him once, twice. Watches Yuuri’s face like he’s the most interesting thing in existence, twists his hand just right on the upstroke - Yuuri grabs his forearm, and Victor stills.

He exhales a shaky breath through his nose, feels the muscle beneath his fingers and takes a second to just. _Feel_.

It’s too much, and too little, and Yuuri - Yuuri digs his heels in the sand and pushes his hips up, just enough to earn a soft laugh from Victor, a swipe of his thumb against the head of his cock.

“So demanding, Yuuri,” Victor whispers into his mouth.

Yuuri feels only a little guilty when he digs his nails into Victor’s arm; Victor’s eyes go dark, and the petals in his hair turn a vivid, thick red. He strokes Yuuri tortuously, and Yuuri twists under his touch.

Desire sits under his skin like cut glass, ringing out with the need to pull Victor close, to push him away; he pulls at his forearm, tugs at Victor when he doesn’t _move_ and whines.

Victor kisses him, open-mouthed and hot, and lets Yuuri guide him. Presses down when Yuuri sighs, thumbs the wet little beads of pre-cum and makes Yuuri shake into the sand.

His breathing runs ragged, and he turns his head into Victor’s shoulder, stifles his hitching moans there while his heart pounds in his ears - it sounds like the rushing of the waves, like the beat of Victor’s heart against his.

Victor lets Yuuri fuck his hand, then twists and slides _slow_ , makes him feel the whole agonising glide of flesh against flesh.

“You’re perfect,” Victor murmurs into his temple, voice thick and potent and enough to make Yuuri buck up with a gasp.

His movements become slick, become purposeful, and Yuuri can’t do anything but lie and cling to him, squeeze his eyes shut and focus on the pleasure that cuts through everything else; a knife edge taking him apart, whispering his name and telling him _come on, it’s okay, I’m here_.

“ _Victor_.” Is all he can say when he comes - teeters off the blade that is Victor’s sharp desire, spills over his hand in threading pulses.

“Just like that, Yuuri,” Victor croons, “yes, god, just like that.”

He sounds awestruck, sounds filthy. He strokes Yuuri until he’s sobbing and shoving his hand away.

Yuuri lies dazed, staring through steamy glass, and tries to remember how to breathe. Tries to will the subdued itch for release, for _more_ , into nothingness; Victor raises his hand and licks one pearlescent droplet off with his pink tongue.

“Oh god.” Yuuri groans, his dick twitching interestedly.

It’s almost admirable, that his cock thinks it’s got any say in the matter. He hastily tucks himself away, redoes his buttons and flushes at Victor’s dramatic sound of disappointment.

They need a bed, and a room, and somewhere that he can get his hands on Victor without risking sand in unfortunate places.

He pulls Victor upright, and tugs him forward.

“Inn. Now.” He orders.

Victor hobbles alongside him, hands never leaving his hips.

Yuuri nods at the small group of gulls that have gathered at the beach walls, watching them go with their beady, black eyes.

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

“Your hair looks lovely today,” Hiroko tells Victor over dinner.

His hair is shining, teeming with indigo, and has very clearly been hastily combed into something that says ‘I did not just have sex with your only son in his childhood bedroom’.

Victor puts his hand over his heart, and returns the compliment.

“Ah, when I was pregnant with Yuuri I was the same,” she says. Gets a distant, glittery look in her eyes and Yuuri immediately wants to die as she continues, “well. You know what they say about-”

Yuuri chokes on his rice. Victor pats his back while he coughs and splutters and gives his father a watery look that screams for help.

His dad, helpfully, just laughs.

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

He helps his mother with cleaning plates, enjoys the almost meditative quality of sponging the bowls clean, the companionable quiet as he passes them to her for drying.

She hums happily to herself and Yuuri is reminded of doing this as a child, as a teen. Of coming home from school and pulling a step-stool out so he could help her, of getting back from practice and towering over her as he cleared the sink.

He thinks of doing this in his own home, with his own child. Yuuri smiles to himself, rubs his belly absently as he passes another plate over.

His mother looks down at his hand, smiles up at him as she dries it off with a towel.

“We still have some of your baby clothes, you know.”

Yuuri cocks his head at her.

“Yeah?”

She nods, “in one of the store rooms. I’m sure your father could get them out for you.”

Yuuri swallows a little at the thought, the implication, of trawling through the clothes his parents dressed him in, of dressing his own baby in the same outfits.

He puts his plate down with a clink, and carefully takes his mother’s hand. She watches him, lets him take her hand and lay it flat to his - to it - to _them_.

As if on cue, the baby moves. Light, bubbly, but definitely there. His mum gasps, giggles, and presses against the movement. Chases it across Yuuri’s belly.

She gives Yuuri a watery, glittering smile.

“She’s going to be special,” his mother whispers.

Yuuri blinks back tears and pulls his mother into a sudden, squeezing hug.

 _She already is,_ he thinks.

  
\- - -   - - -   - - -

Yuuri wakes Victor up at three in the morning, staring at him in the darkness with huge eyes.

Victor stares back.

Yuuri slithers down the bed and takes Victor, half-hard, into his mouth.

“Oh,” Victor says to the black-blue ceiling.

Yuuri hums and curls his tongue round him.

“ _O_ _h,”_ Victor says again.

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

“It’s funny you don’t have any cravings.”

Victor coughs at Yuuri’s side, and Yuuri elbows him before turning to Minako.

She’s eyeing both of them with a look that’s worryingly sharp; Yuuri is reminded of Yurio’s cat, flashing its soft belly before sinking pinprick teeth into his hand.

“I’ve had a few.”

The baby’s been a fluttering, hummingbird presence the last few days. Only stilling when he puts a hand to his belly, or Victor’s, or his mother’s. (“Not even born and already a drama-queen” he laments one night, while Victor kisses and kisses the bump, smiling and murmuring praise.)

There’s a jar of pickled onions in their room with Yuuri’s name on it.

(He pointedly doesn’t think about the creak of their bed, of the restless, endless urge that woke him at some godless hour, had Victor gasping and writhing underneath him.)

Victor coughs again, smiling behind his hand.

“Here and there.”

He squeezes Yuuri’s thigh, sets the thin wire of want across Yuuri’s flesh again.

Yuuri narrows his eyes and shifts in his seat.

Minako’s eyebrows twitch, and when she speaks her voice is flat.

“Your mother had all sorts of cravings when she was pregnant. Both times.”

“I’m not my moth- _er_ ,” Yuuri’s voice goes breathy at the end, and he tries to discreetly remove Victor’s hand from the inside of his thigh.

He ends up sort of awkwardly thudding their hands, entwined, onto the table. It’s not his smoothest moment.

“Hmm,” is Minako’s reply.

She stares at their hands.

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

They return to their own apartment with a box of Yuuri’s old baby-gros, one very sulky poodle and fresh, purpling bruises on their skin. A framed glossy ultrasound now sits on the bedside table.

(Victor had choked up, wept fat tears as the technician pointed out the baby’s tiny legs. Yuuri hadn’t cried, had held his breath until the technician smiled and told them everything looked okay.)

Yuuri turns this way and that in the mirror before bed, touches his belly with reverence and feels happiness tearing through him. The baby is healthy, hale, and, as far as he’s concerned, perfect. The press of anxiety at the edges has gone - mostly - and he turns the thought over in his mind in an excited tumblr. He feels not unlike Makkachin when presented with a ball and the possibility that it might be thrown; all trembling limbs and rapt eyes, ready and raring to chase, to tumble without thought after it.

He studies himself closely and is actually pleased with his reflection. There’s softness at the edges where he normally feels jagged. He’s swollen in places and puffy with _necessity._ It’s hard to feel unattractive when all he can see is _life_ , blooming and growing under his skin.

 _Victor put you here,_ he thinks as he presses his palm to the bump. _All of this is for you._

The baby flutters once, then is quiet. As if shifting in sleep, contented and safe in Yuuri’s hands.

For the first time in Yuuri’s life, he understands what it means to be glowing. Feels more than ever that mark of Victor’s love - wants to parade the fact of his devotion in front of everyone. The warm, real connection that brings them always back into one another’s orbit.

He feels serene and, with Victor covertly leering from the bedroom, he feels _sexy_.

The click of a camera disturbs him, and Yuuri moves like lightning. Clambers over Victor clumsily, tussles with him for his phone, laughing and cursing at him.

Victor kisses him, and tucks the phone away while he’s distracted. (Victor is a cheat.)

Yuuri pushes him back against the pillows and grinds against him. Victor, ever ready, always eager, actually gasps and cocks his head at him.

“ _Again_?”

Yuuri presses Victor’s wrists to the mattress and drags their erections together.

“Again.”

(They paint the high ceiling gold with their love; lace it with keening ecstasy. Victor spreads a hand over Yuuri’s belly, whispers, _“let me take care of you”_ , and Yuuri comes, untouched.)

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

“Why don’t you just use _‘lapochka’_?” He asks, exasperated, from where he’s sitting against the headboard.

Victor is curled round Yuuri and the bump, like a dragon round its hoard. Putting his hands here and there, eyes wondrous, smile _dangerous_. He’s been trying different nicknames and gauging the response.

“Nope,” he pops the word obnoxiously, “not a fan of that one, are we?”

The baby resolutely does not respond, and to be honest, Yuuri knows how they feel.

He goes back to scrolling through his phone. If he’s actually recording Victor being utterly ridiculous, shedding green and pink petals all over their bedsheets while he coos increasingly silly nicknames into his stomach, then who has to know?

“ _Zoloste,”_ Victor croons, “ _kotyonok, solnyshko…”_

“I’m sure you’ve called me some of these.” Yuuri arches his eyebrow, stares at Victor over his phone.

Victor gives him a butter-wouldn’t-melt smile, and leans close to his belly button.

“ ** _Akachan_ **.”

“Oh god,” Yuuri drops his phone and buries his face in his hands, “we are not calling the baby ‘Baby’.”

When he peers through his fingers, Victor is pouting comically. He looks up at Yuuri and mutinously whispers, “ _petit chou_.”

There’s a tiny kick, and Victor’s eyes go wide. Delighted, then, for a moment, horrified.

Yuuri retrieves his phone and makes sure to capture the full power of Victor’s terror as he says, “Yuuri, our baby wants to be called _cabbage_.”

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

“I’m not complaining,” he gasps, knuckles white on Yuuri’s knees, “but I think this might actually be a _thing_.”

Yuuri paws at Victor’s face, whimpering and trying to fold himself further - which is currently tricky, what with being five months pregnant, and having Victor’s dick inside him.

“No talking,” he groans, “only sex.”

Victor laughs, breathlessly, and fucks into him with a languid roll. His expensive shirt is rucked up around his armpits, designer slacks halfway down his thighs.

Yuuri admires the flex and strain of his abs, just as much as he admires that he probably just ruined Victor’s nicest suit.

 _Worth it,_ he thinks, as the car creaks, squeaks with their motions.

It feels almost juvenile, fooling around in a car, but Victor’d looked so handsome in his suit, and Yuuri’s been twitchy, ready to go for most of the night. Trying to date while pregnant was tricky, especially when the baby decided that it didn’t want to play along. Tonight, miraculously, there’d been no objections to the food in the restaurant Victor’d selected, and they’d spent the evening holding hands and giddily sharing plates.

(It feels, if he thinks about it, a lot like when they first got together. When they made soft declarations to go slow, to hold off on sex - forgetting that Victor, as the child of a fertility goddess, had a tendency to inspire certain activities just by _breathing_. Two ruined hotel rooms later they’d agreed to just go with the flow, and that’s about all Yuuri’s willing to say on the matter of Victor’s virility.)

Yuuri wails, arches in Victor’s arms showily; Victor swears, gathers him against the car door and fucks him properly.

The almost frantic drag of him is maddening, shoving Yuuri, inch by inch, towards that blank space - that void of brainless, arcing pleasure.

“Victor, _more_.”

Victor bites at his jaw and says, “I _can’t_ , solnyshko, I _can’t-_ ”

His hands are burning around Yuuri’s thighs, fingers shaking even as they dig in (will undoubtedly bruise by the morning) to the rhythm of _them_. Raggedy, orange petals flutter onto Yuuri’s chest, light as air and unbearable to touch.

He twists just so - and then Victor shakes apart above him, drawing in great, painful sounding breaths as he grinds into Yuuri.

Yuuri laughs, beams and _bleeds_ love for this man, even as he rocks himself in desperate little circles; Victor presses his lips to Yuuri’s shoulder, slips out of him with a slick sound, and drags one hand up Yuuri’s torso. Give the slightest press of his fingernails to the sensitive flesh of his chest.

“Ah,” Yuuri jerks, and Victor repeats the motion, lips turning to a smile against Yuuri’s collarbone.

He brings Yuuri off with his mouth to his throat, and thumbs to the dark peaks of his nipples.

Yuuri falls into blinding, fizzing light, whining Victor’s name and squirming under his hands.

They lie together a while, crushed into the backseat. Victor sprawls across Yuuri, who’s trying to get his breath back with one hand chasing Victor’s around the bump.

The urge, the need is still there, but softer. Quieter now. Victor is muttering, sleepily into his stomach, and Yuuri is faintly aware of gulls calling in the distance.

“I think this is a _thing_.” He finally says. Concedes into the earth-rich smell rising up from them.

Victor’s hand pauses below his belly button, and then he’s pressing warm lips to it, to him - to _them_.

“You only have to say the word,” he whispers into Yuuri’s skin, fixes him with bright eyes, before shifting so he’s hovering over him again, close enough to share air.

“I’ll always look after you, Yuuri. Both of you.”

Yuuri’s eyes burn, and words escape him. So he kisses him, lets their ring fingers slide together with a gentle clink.

In the blue light of the moon, the gold glitters over his belly and their baby flutters beneath.

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realised, after rereading the first chapter, that I kind of. Forgot to actually explain anything about the universe of this AU. Sorry about that. (I'm blaming the cold for as long as I can.)
> 
> Rest assured that there will actually be more stuff about the universe in future chapters, up to and including both of their family situations - because what's mpreg without awkward family bonding over a new baby?


	3. Cloth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Yuuri suits being pregnant. In the same way he suits Victor’s ring on his finger, suits worn jeans with the cuffs rolled up past his ankles._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short bit of fluff for this prompt. In part because I started to fall down the rabbithole that was googling maternity wear.

\- - -   - - -   - - -

Yuuri suits being pregnant. In the same way he suits Victor’s ring on his finger, suits worn jeans with the cuffs rolled up past his ankles. The way he suits the lace tucked into the bottom of their underwear drawer, and the blush he wears under sheer material and Victor’s stare. Of course, the look he gives Victor when _he’s_ the one in lace and frills is also an A+ look, but Victor digresses.

The pros of having a wardrobe designed to fit off-season weight fluctuation mean that he’s managed to put off the inevitable turn towards the Maternity section of clothes shops, and his shirts are currently sitting just snug over his stomach, riding up ever so slightly when he moves and teasing Victor with the glimpse of glorious skin.

Yuuri is radiant most of the time, but now he’s a beacon. All lit up with love that makes people turn to him, helplessly.

Makkachin follows him from room to room, puts herself between him and any strange person or perceived threat. Occasionally this includes sitting between him and particularly tasty food. Makka is a dedicated protector.

Victor is alternately amused and impressed by the small followings Yuuri acquires. Today it’s a gaggle of actual, honest-to-god ducklings. Their mother is equally enamoured, and Yuuri absently throws her some rice while he and Victor chat over a quick dinner.

Victor looks at the ducks, who look up at Yuuri with quivering, excited affection, and he thinks, _I know, God, I_ **_know_ ** _._

“I think I need new clothes,” Yuuri says, sadly, “my trousers aren’t fitting right anymore.”

Victor carefully doesn’t look down at the way his jeans are spread, taut, over his thighs like a promise.

The ducklings are making impatient quacking sounds at their feet.

He swallows his food, carefully doesn’t stand on any of them, and says, “let’s go shopping!”

 

\- - -   - - - - - -

Yuuri refuses to try on the floaty tops and slips that Victor’s sure he’d look _ethereal_ in. Gives him a dark look when Victor pulls out the puppy-eyes, and pointedly drags him to the trousers which are boring, but admittedly what they actually came in for.

Victor spends the afternoon delighting in his new role as style advisor, and may or may not use said position to cop a feel. (Yuuri yelps, but makes approximately zero moves to remove Victor’s hand from the back of his pants, so he considers it a win.)

When they get home there’s a silken _thing_ at the bottom of the bag, and Victor stupidly makes a big deal about it. Pulls it out and holds it up like a trophy, giving Yuuri a wide smile - it’s been so long since he’s added something new to their collection, and to do so _sneakily_ does things to Victor. He spends a second too long to unfurl it though, distracted by the way Yuuri pauses and gives him a wide-eyed look.

Then Yuuri snatches it away from him and says, flatly, “oh would you look at that, something you’re never going to see me wear”, before disappearing through their bedroom door.

Victor looks at Makkachin, who pants back at him.

“Makka, go find,” he says.

She yawns, and plops herself down into her bed. Which is fair.

Victor sorts the rest of their shopping before joining Yuuri in the bedroom. Perches at the side of the bed and watches Yuuri scrolling through something on his phone. Wonders if he can telepathically work out what the silk thing was, and where it is. After all, Victor figures, being part god is pointless if he can’t do anything _useful_ with it _._

(Useful like causing the swelling of Yuuri’s belly - useful like feeling Yuuri’s gentle contentment in his own bones. Victor still isn’t used to being useful, and it still gives him a thrill, deep in his bones.)

“If you can find it, you can see me in it,” Yuuri says, not lifting his eyes from his phone.

Victor flops dramatically across him and whispers conspiratorially into the bump.

“Your father is an evil genius, _mon trésor.”_

He pauses, then looks up at Yuuri who shakes his head.

“Please, sweetheart,” Victor takes the bump in between his hands, feigns desperation, “don’t make me call you _Cabbage_.”

He feels the little kick beneath his fingers, and rolls away with a pained whine. It’s only part theatrics.

Yuuri smirks down at him. Bright like the moon, swimming serenely above him. He leans over - with some difficulty now - and presses a kiss to Victor’s mouth. It’s sweetness - tangy with amusement, and Victor wants to kiss Yuuri forever. Wrap himself in the tangle of Yuuri’s aura, the weighty, loving shroud of his emotion. The way his delight bleeds out everytime Victor pulls him close - everytime he looks across the room to find Victor staring, shamelessly, back.

But that’s not practical, and for all their divinity, they still have to breathe. So they part, Victor with a playful pout.

He rolls over onto his front, rests his head on his crossed arms, and peers up at Yuuri. Knows he’s a sucker for Victor’s best Makkachin impression.

Yuuri studies him for a second, then returns to his phone.

“That’s less effective when Makkachin is actually here.”

She barks, softly, from her place on Yuuri’s other side, and drops her chin to rest on his belly.

Victor wants to take a photo. Wants to treasure this moment forever; Makkachin the brave, and his and Yuuri’s little one.

“Traitor.” He says, without any bite.

He curves his hand round the swell of Yuuri’s belly, and presses his fingertips to Makka’s soft chin.

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

Victor gets more excited about it than Yuuri.

Yuuri’s never been too fussed with fashion, though he appreciates nice clothes well enough. Clothes are clothes, and when they look good it’s great, but not their main purpose. His own wardrobe costs maybe the same amount as one of Victor’s suits, and that’s fine. They’ve been wearing each others’ clothes long enough that it’s sometimes hard to know what originally belonged to who.

Except now Victor’s shirts, which were normally a little baggy on Yuuri, are clingy. And Yuuri’s shirts are even worse.

Which is how Yuuri ends up peering over Victor’s shoulder as he excitedly googles maternity wear.

He scrolls down one particular site, full of men and women who look like living stock photos, in variously ordinary and awful clothes; the screen slows, hesitantly, over one flowy, see-through thing, and Yuuri says “no”, directly into Victor’s ear, making him jump.

Victor looks round at him, smile slightly sheepish, flowers trembling in his hair.

“But it’s your colour,” he says, only half joking.

Yuuri reaches over and scrolls down, hoping to find something less revealing and instead discovering that Victor is apparently firmly entrenched in the ‘sheer and floaty’ section of the website.

He shoots Victor a look from under his eyelashes, just to watch the way his throat bobs, and clicks pointedly onto the normal shirts.

Victor, whose flowers are slowly turning pink, pouts. Then he gasps, and leans forward - zeroes in on a thick, woollen thing that, to be honest? Isn’t too bad. It’s a nice colour, and covered in tiny woolly dogs, and Yuuri wouldn’t mind except -

“Victor, it’s _June_.”

And sweltering, and Yuuri’s not due until autumn which is usually brisk rather than actually _cold_ in Hasetsu. So the doggy jumper, cute as it may be, will likely never see a single day of use.

“I know,” Victor sighs, “but look, it’s so cute!”

Yuuri closes the screen of the laptop gently, despite Victor’s protests. Slides onto his lap and buries his face in his neck, hugging him as if to soften the blow.

“This is an intervention.”

Victor hugs back, and says, “oh?”

“Hmm,” Yuuri pulls back to look him in the face, faintly aware of the fluttering sensation in his belly, the love  rippling outward from Victor, “you’re falling down the maternity wear rabbithole.”

“It’s a good rabbithole,” Victor mutters, mutinously, mind no doubt somewhere around the floaty thing Yuuri just stopped him from buying, (and the silky thing he’s hidden. Is torturing both of them over.)

Yuuri kisses the indignation off his lips. He presses close and Victor’s arms tighten around him; Yuuri’s belly presses into Victor’s and oh. Apparently that’s a _thing_ , because Victor pulls away and his eyes are dark, a thick, earthy scent spilling from him.

“Think how good you’d look, Yuuri,” he says, breath hitching when Yuuri rocks just _so_ in his lap.

Yuuri shuts him up with a nip, and drops his hands to Victor’s belt.

Thinking can wait.

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

The shop assistant falls in love with Yuuri almost instantly, and Victor commiserates with him.

They’re ostensibly looking for more maternity pants, Makka apparently having mangled a pair (and Victor has promised her the biggest, chewiest treat for taking that particular bullet, because he honestly didn’t mean to destroy any of Yuuri’s clothes but their new washing machine has decided it hates him.)

The bored-looking young man snaps to attention when Yuuri approaches and asks _if he’d be so kind, but do they possibly have this pair in a bigger size, thank you ever so much_.

He looks at Yuuri like he’s a religious experience, and darts off as if he’s been tasked with finding the holy grail.

_Godspeed,_ Victor thinks, as Yuuri smiles after him, looking fecund, flustered and _gorgeous_. He slides his fingers between Yuuri’s and tugs him gently towards the shelving nearest them while they wait.

Victor hones in on the shelf of underwear and casually starts picking through it. Occasionally shows Yuuri a pair, just for the way he manages to laugh without opening his mouth, fixing Victor with a disapproving look that fools absolutely nobody. His eyes are bright and he’s still holding Victor’s hand.

“We’re not here to buy _lingerie_ , Victor.”

“But we could be,” he pouts and pulls out a silky, red thing, “why aren’t we?”

“Because someone can’t work a washing machine to save his life.” Yuuri grumbles.

“What.” Victor says.

Yuuri gives him a close mouthed smile.

“What?”

Victor drops the panties and crowds into Yuuri, slides his hands under Yuuri’s jack to pet the bump and whine shamelessly.

“You’d cast aspersions on me, here, in front of our own child?”

Yuuri, who is trying his hardest not to grin, wraps his fingers around Victor’s wrists and, looking down, gently says, “don’t listen to him, he’s awful.”

“ _Yuuri_ ~”

Victor proceeds to do his best to ingratiate himself between Yuuri’s shirt and the bump. Yuuri responds with bubbly laughter, only lets him get halfway there.

He steals a quick kiss as he pulls back - feels the warmth and shift of blooming that Yuuri inspires in him, and when Yuuri looks up at him with wide, shining eyes, Victor reaches up and plucks a bloom from the whorl atop his head. He offers the rich, indigo rose to Yuuri, who flushes prettily and tucks it into his jacket buttonhole.

Then he stage-whispers down to his belly, _“he also thinks he’s smooth.”_

Victor slaps a hand to his heart, makes an offended noise, and pouts. He turns back to the panties and starts neatening them up. Can feel Yuuri’s eyes on him like a hand on his neck, because Victor’s always aware of Yuuri - _everyone’s_ aware of Yuuri. He’s Jupiter, catching the comets of utterly unprepared passersby, pulling them into his orbit and irrevocably changing their course.

The baby’s going to be the same, Victor knows it. Is going to inspire love, and devotion, and adoration from anyone who sees them. Is going to have Yuuri’s wine-warm eyes, and his soft, steady glow.

Victor’s heart hurts, and he wants to tell the world how _the universes has given me the greatest gift I couldn’t even imagine and I’m going to spend my life learning how to keep them happy and safe._

Yuuri slides his hand into Victor’s pocket.

Victor isn’t a weak man but, for Yuuri? He can and _will_ be. He turns his head and smiles at him - Yuuri smiles back.

Then Victor picks up a blue, sheer scrap of material and arches his brow.

Yuuri shuts his eyes, breathes out. Victor can almost see him counting to ten in his head.

Finally, he opens his eyes again and after sliding them left and right, nods. Looks at the various silken pieces and Victor watches him look through them.

Yuuri’s eyes glitter, then he pulls out a silver-grey pair of panties.

They’re pretty. Little whirling patterns across the soft surface, and when he holds them out for inspection, there’s a heart-shaped dip in the back, tied together with a tiny ribbon.

Victor loves this man.

“Have my children.”

Yuuri flushes and opens his mouth to retort, when they’re interrupted by a choked, surprised sound.

The shop assistant holds out a pair of jeans, turning vivid red as he can’t seem to look away from Yuuri’s hands.

“Um.” He says.

Victor gently pries the jeans out of his hands, and the boy turns to go with a glazed, confused look.  When Victor turns back to Yuuri, he’s frowning at the underwear in his hands. Considering it with a serious little frown.

“Yuuri?” Victor takes the panties from him, which seems to break the spell.

“I don’t think they’ll fit,” is what Yuuri says, still frowning. He looks after the shop assistant, and worries his lip.

Victor dies a little inside for the poor boy.

“I’ll go ask if they’ve got a bigger size, _zoloste_.”

Yuuri, bashful and beautiful, glows.

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

The hunt for the Silky Thing takes a backseat when Yuuri suddenly acquires an allergy to wearing shirts around the apartment. He’s resplendent. He’s swollen with life, and the evidence of their love, and he’s _constantly half naked._

Victor wants to put his hands all over their baby, and coo nonsense to them, all the time.  He wants to bite his way across Yuuri’s collarbone, and mouth at his swollen chest.

Yuuri, apparently unaware of Victor’s suffering, complains that his shirts are itchy - that they’re chafing and they’re _unbearable, Vitya, seriously._

(“I can’t just walk around shirtless,” Yuuri laments.

“I don’t see why not.” Victor says, and Yuuri sighs. Sounding like the world is on his shoulders, when Victor knows it’s in his hands, his belly.

“You’re biased.” Is all Yuuri says, and Victor doesn’t deny it.)

Victor returns to the store and buys half the maternity shirts on display - frills or no frills.

The same poor shop assistant looks up at him curiously as he scans each shirt, and Victor can’t help preening a little. Mentally rubbing it in that yes, these are for his lovely, pregnant husband, and _oh, I’m just buying them because now that he’s pregnant - did I mention he’s pregnant - his normal shirts don’t fit and right now he’s eating chips, shirtless, on our coach in our home, our home where he’s having our baby._

He smiles as the boy hands him his bag, and thanks him politely.

When he gets home, Yuuri is sprawled across the couch, touching the bump and talking to it. He looks up when Victor steps in, and beams across at him, reaches out a hand.

Victor is helpless but to reach back, dropping the bag of shirts on the floor and sitting down as Yuuri tugs his fingers to his belly button.

“She won’t settle,” he explains, “started up about ten minutes after you left.”

Victor wants to cry. Still can’t believe that this is real, that this is his - _theirs_. He kisses Yuuri’s cheek and rests his head on his shoulder.

“Is that any way to behave, _petit chou_?”

There’s a kick directly under his palm, and then a few, softer flutters.

Yuuri sighs and leans into his touch.

“You’re embracing cabbage?”

Victor presses his face into Yuuri’s neck, and says, “for now.”

(For forever. Most likely.)

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently Victor's POV = endless sighing over Yuuri's beauty.


	4. Liturgy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Victor has always loved Yuuri completely. Always believed in him beyond anything and everything else._
> 
>  
> 
> _He’s also always had this thing about his feet. About his ankles. About his fingers, his back, the crease between abdomen and thigh - basically, if it’s a part of Yuuri, he’s a fan._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First things first: the cold I had turned out to be the flu and I was out of commission for the rest of the yuuripreg week. So my sincerest apologies for just disappearing :c
> 
> That said, a change of plan has occurred due to the delay/catch up in posting - namely I've decided that the Free Day piece is going to be its own thing, owing to it getting bigger than intended, and having a different tone to the rest of this. It'll be posted at the end of this, and so we're jumping straight into Day Five.
> 
> This chapter may seem a bit different from the others due to me no longer being feverish, and I will be reworking/editing previous chapters alongside the free-day piece, but Day Six and Seven are going to come before any editing/rewrites. 
> 
> Hopefully that's okay for you guys!

\- - -   - - -   - - -

Worship has a funny effect on the divine. By halves, by wholes; they dowse themselves in the font of devotion, drink deep from the well of boundless love and earth-shaking belief. It’s reductive to say it strengthens them, but also, there’s no human words to explain just _what_ worship is to them.

Victor has always loved Yuuri completely. Always believed in him beyond anything and everything else.

He’s also always had this thing about his feet. About his ankles. About his fingers, his back, the crease between abdomen and thigh - basically, if it’s a part of Yuuri, he’s a fan.

The bump rockets to the top of Victor’s list and, look, Victor’s only a man (mostly). If he spends a dedicated ten to fifteen minutes engaged in active worship of his and Yuuri’s baby, then that’s his and Yuuri and the baby’s business.

And as creation takes its toll on Yuuri - dims his glow ever so slightly, has him grumbling when he has to get up (or down, or out) - Victor sets about doing his best to assuage what he can. To smooth out what’s in reach. Turns his exaltation into ritual; prostration into cuddles, hymns into lips pressed to the deep, lightningstrike stretch marks. He could worship Yuuri like a true believer - is struck mortal in the  the way his hair twists and flicks first thing in the morning, the way he scrunches his nose when he catches a whiff of Victor’s mulchy coffee that’s half sugar, half bean.

Victor has his supplication mapped out, barely needs to think about it, like breathing.

Victor has Yuuri, and Makkachin, and a baby on the way, and _he has got this covered._

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

Victor pulls Yuuri’s feet into his lap and presses his thumbs to swollen, aching flesh. Drinks in the sighs that punctuate each gentle squeeze; he draws a line from Yuuri’s big toe to his heel, Yuuri huffing and flexing his foot under the teasing touch.

He curves his fingers round the achilles tendon, bends down to press a kiss to his swollen ankle.

Yuuri hums, wriggles on the cushions, and Victor smiles at him from under his fringe.

“Have I told you you have the most beautiful feet?”

Yuuri rests his right hand over the bump and gives Victor a bright look. He’s radiant. All soft and golden round the edges, eyes bright and dark all at the same time. He replies low, tired, and a little wry:

“Once or twice.”

Victor slides his hands back up, kneads a knuckle into the tight ball of his foot - earns a throaty little groan in response.

“I want to tell you again,” he says. “You have the most beautiful feet.”

The noise Yuuri makes is only half-disbelieving, so he counts it as a win, and carries on with his work. Taking stress out of bone, turning fatigue into mallowy reprieve. With each press and sweep Yuuri melts back into the sofa, satisfied sounds turning faintly obscene when Victor starts in on his arches.

It’s...nice. The apartment is quiet like a cloister around them, air still and the afternoon light a warm weight on the two of them. Victor could stay forever at Yuuri’s feet, in dedication. Anticipation.

He thumbs Yuuri’s heels, and Yuuri, moaning, _glows_.

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

Makkachin runs ahead of them in the park. They only keep up with her because she sticks her nose into every bush she passes, snuffling around until she pulls back with a satisfied whuff, and moves on to bother the next bit of shrubbery.

It’s autumn now, and while not _cold_ by any means, it’s chillier than it has been. Victor can now comfortably wear the smart coat that he wears purely for the way Yuuri cuts his eyes away, how the tips of his ears turn pink as he sneaks covert little looks at him.

(“It’s very professional,” he said, poker-faced, when Victor tried it on in the shop. Fingering his phone nervously. Absolutely _not_ taking pictures of Victor posing, ridiculously, in it.)

The park is dotted with families, couples, pets. Yuuri looks lovely in the mid-morning light, brimming over with life and stirring the deepest parts of Victor into song.

He’s got one hand in Victor’s pocket, twined with his own fingers, and the other over his stomach as he navigates the rough path Makka leads them on. Protective, hovering over the bump without touching. Yuuri could be a painting. A statue. An icon for pilgrims to stand and gaze under.

“We still need to think of a name.” He says it while hopping, lightly, over a root.

Victor stares for a minute. Brain picking itself apart over awe and a suspicious, tugging _Thought_.

Yuuri brushes his belly, as though sweeping off dust; Victor watches helplessly, hands twitching.

“I have a folder at home,” he announces, like he’s not got an entire shelf of folders full of baby plans and plans for babies. Yuuri gives him A Look. Squints attractively at him from behind his glasses.

Somewhere over his shoulder is a young couple, playing fetch with a ball of fluff Victor presumes is, if not a dog, at the very least _domesticated_.

“Then maybe we should go through your folder,” Yuuri says decisively, before tugging Victor further along after Makka.

“We should go through all my folders. Especially the ones your mother helped with.” 

Victor leans close and brushes his lips over Yuuri’s ear, adds, “those ones have _pictures_.”

Yuuri, very pointedly, says nothing.

(They’re glorious. Little Yuuri wore the same displeased frown in every family photo. Unclear whether he was more annoyed at his surroundings or the sweet, little sailor suit Hiroko insisted on dressing him in.)

They walk a little further in companionable quiet, noise of the park’s other guests the percussion to their footsteps. Falling in rhythm, in tandem.

Makka is an excited blur ahead of them, brown interspersed with green leaves where she’s been inspecting the grounds. Her tail is a dowsing rod, directing them this way and that. Eventually they catch up to her, stopped still, watching the two of them approach. Her black eyes are glittery and Victor suspects, not for the first time, that she’s left them alone on purpose.

“Good girl,” Yuuri chirps, makes an abortive little movement like he was about to kneel down, fuss her with his fingers in her curls. Instead, he pulls his hand out of Victor’s and holds both out, makes grabby gestures for her to come closer.

She goes to him like she’s been waiting for him to ask - something Victor understands wholeheartedly. Bumps and licks Yuuri’s hands, before nudging her wet nose to his belly. Makkachin considers it, _them_ , then she pants happily and turns to Victor for _his_ allotted fussing.

As he crouches, there’s a commotion behind them - Yuuri turns gracefully, almost a spin, almost like he’s not carrying a whole other person inside him, while Victor jerks his head up and is rewarded with an unpleasant click, a yank of pain.

He bravely powers through it, and looks for the source of the sound.

“Oh,” Yuuri reaches out, clasps his shoulder, and laughs, “I think he proposed?”

Victor looks over where Yuuri’s facing, and sees the couple from before. Young woman standing, stock-still, hands clasped to her face and nodding almost puppet-like, while the young man spreads his arms from where he’s kneeling on the ground.

A small crowd is around them, clapping and generally seeming more enthused about the spectacle than Victor’s seen anyone be in this park. The most excited he’s seen anyone be here is Makkachin when they acquire the occasional squirrel stalker. (There’s not many that dare to get close. The ones who do peer eerily at Yuuri, then disappear with a flick of their tail. It is still, somehow, not the weirdest thing Victor’s seen.)

Victor smiles. It’s sweet, he supposes. Young love. He looks at Yuuri, whose expression is unbearably soft, fondly bemused. He looks like artwork. Like he belongs in a museum.

He looks like a god, and the Thought niggles.

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

“Hey, Makka, _listen_.”

Makkachin sits to attention and peers up at Victor, while her tail thumps happily against the floor. He cradles her snout and fusses her fluffy cheeks with a coo.

“Remember what we’re looking for?”

She woofs quietly. Pats his knee with one paw, and he releases her to point towards the bedroom and whispers, “go, find, that’s a good girl!”

There’s a second where Victor thinks she’s just humouring him, giving him a long look before trotting to the bedroom door. Then she turns to look at him one last time and Victor _knows_ she is.

He sighs and sprawls back on the sofa, listens to the faint sounds of Yuuri showering woven with Makka’s investigatory whuffs. He shuts his eyes, imagines Yuuri under the stream of warm water; hair inky and sodden, skin warm and flushed, his limbs soft, pliant. Sagging under relief rather than fatigue.

If Victor thinks hard enough, he can feel that contentment seeping out from Yuuri, from the shower. It spills into the air around him, spreading out like milk in tea. He feels, for the strangest moment, the imprint of Yuuri’s arms round his shoulders. The beat of their hearts together, chasing away the dark little din in the pit of Victor’s gut.

The phantom arms squeeze tight, and he jolts as if coming awake. Blinks up at the ceiling and almost smacks himself in the face with the hand he raises to where he felt the pressure. Still feels it. The imprint of Yuuri’s fingers, the ring on his hand.

The sounds of the shower shut off, and Victor looks towards the bedroom, where he can hear Makkachin still pottering around. There’s a click of a door and the sound of Yuuri sighing.

“And what are _you_ doing?” He says, muffled by distance (and possibly by a very excited poodle), before saying, a little louder, “it doesn’t count if Makka finds it.”

Victor rolls himself off the sofa, creeps to the door and peeks round it.

Yuuri is sitting on the edge of their bed, a plush towel draped round him like a shawl, and an amused smile on his flushed face. He’s circling the bump with both hands, second nature by now, and an action that has Victor melting.

“Oh, _that’s_ where she went!” Victor chirps, and gets a very unconvinced look in response.

There’s a drop of water making its way down the middle of Yuuri’s chest. Victor’s fingers twitch with the urge to trace its path, to draw shiny little lines with it.

He steps, almost tentative, over the threshold.

Yuuri wraps himself in the towel, arches his back and makes a gorgeous sound when it pops.

Makkachin looks between them, furry brow furrowed, then she pushes past Victor’s legs with a huff he could swear was long-suffering.

His legs feel leaden, liquid all at once; he wobbles over to Yuuri, who blinks up at him when he comes to a stop in front of him.

Yuuri’s eyelashes glitter - with water, with _something_. Victor wants to shut his eyes and run his thumb through the dark fan of his lashes, see if the shine comes off with his fingers.

Yuuri pauses, stares at him with big, dark eyes.

“Victor?”

Victor sinks to his knees. Keeps his gaze on Yuuri as he makes the long, slow journey down to the carpet. When he’s there, he spreads his hands over his bare thighs - still shower warm, damp. Strokes the stretchmarks, the softness, the iron core of _Yuuri_ under his thumb. Yuuri, whose breath hitches, and eyes go saucer-like, black holes of realisation.

He goes, like a paperclip to a magnet, and sucks a kiss into the inside of Yuuri’s thigh. Noses the bump as he pull back to look up at him.

“You’re perfect,” Victor whispers, “ _divine._ ”

Yuuri crooks an eyebrow, amused, and twines a hand into Victor’s hair. Victor breathes easy, shuts his eyes and nuzzles into the touch. Yuuri’s fingernails scratch ever so slightly, just right, just there.

“I could worship your thighs until the end of time.”

It’s half flirtation, half confession - Victor feels his cheeks flush as he says it, feels the twisting, winding shapes blossoming in his hair.

Yuuri’s mouth falls into an ‘O’, and when he pulls his hand away, a vivid, red camellia sits in the palm of his hand.

From where Victor kneels, it looks like a heart.

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

He wakes at four in the morning with an awkward crick in his neck and a full bladder.

Victor barely registers that Yuuri is sitting up, except to kiss him sweetly before going to relieve himself. When he comes back, he pauses. Yuuri has his laptop balanced over his belly, one hand curled round the side of his bump, and the other scrolling idly over the trackpad. He looks like he’s been there all night, glasses glinting at the screen, and him sinking slowly into the pillows as the hours passed.

Victor crawls back under the covers, presses himself all along Yuuri’s side and kisses his shoulder affectionately.

“Are you going to sleep at all tonight, lyubov?”

Yuuri takes Victor’s hand with the one on the bump, smoothes over it there. There’s a tiny kick, and Victor wants to _die_ everytime he feels it. Wants to show the world what he and Yuuri have made, what Yuuri has given him.

“I’m not sure who’s keeping who awake,” Yuuri admits, and he sounds lucid, like he’s not even tired, “but she seems to be a fan of Phichit’s videos.”

“Can’t blame her,” Victor mumbles into Yuuri’s collarbone. “Phichit knows his camerawork.”

“Hmm,” is all Yuuri says, clicking the next video in the playlist he’s got queued up.

If Victor looks closely, Yuuri looks...utterly awake. Energetic. He doesn’t look like someone who’s been kept up for five hours by a recalcitrant infant.

Victor studies him, and Yuuri fidgets under his stare. Finally turns his head away from the screen.

“What?”

“You look amazing.” Victor blurts it out before really thinking about it.

 _No regrets,_ he thinks. Never regrets complimenting Yuuri and putting that minute, startled look of pleasure on his face.

The one he’s wearing right now, mouth falling ajar and eyes crinkling slightly with delight. He gathers himself and kisses Victor’s forehead, then turns back to Phichit’s latest video (he’s been streaming bits of himself practicing his new routine - it’s bombastic and playful and apparently the bump responds strongly to it, a fact that has Phichit inordinately thrilled.)

It’s true though. Yuuri does look amazing. Looks healthy and vibrant, looks well-rested and alert, in spite of the hour.

Victor, if he had it in him to hold anything against Yuuri, would feel envious. As it is, he just curls into Yuuri, breathes in his sweet, sea-salt scent.

As he dozes, he hears Yuuri say “oh”, and pluck something from his temple.

Love, bright and sharp and warm, pierces his chest, guides him back into sleep. Victor dreams about golden altars, the sound of gulls as sermon, and Yuuri wrapped, burrito-like, in bathroom towels.

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

“So, I think something’s going on,” Yuuri says, on the way to Dr. Ito’s office.

There’s a gathering of stray cats outside the entrance, watching them. Tails swishing, blinking their green eyes long and slow. They part to let them pass, in a gesture of compliance so unnatural that even the cats seem surprised at themselves.

Between their paws are gaggles of noticeably unmurdered mice.

Victor beams at Yuuri, and says, “oh, really?”

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

The receptionist _swoons_ this time. Rests her chin in her hand and actually sighs in Yuuri’s direction.

Yuuri keeps his gaze on the bump, who has apparently been violently objecting to being taken outside, regardless of how many layers he chose to put on.

(“There’s a foot in my spleen,” he deadpans, when Victor asks him if he’s okay, “other than that, I’m _fantastic_.”)

They’ve been in the room for about five seconds, when Dr. Ito looks Yuuri up and down, and the corners of her mouth twitch (which is the equivalent of an open-mouthed grin, for her.)

She looks at Victor, who feels a little like he’s been caught with his hand in the biscuit tin.

By the time she’s done general checks, her eyebrows are curved upwards, and she is definitely smiling.

Yuuri’s blood pressure is exemplary, and he’s put on exactly the average amount of weight expected for someone as far along as he is.

“You’re as healthy as I’ve ever seen you,” she sits back in her seat, “everything seems to be coming along perfectly.”

“Ah,” Yuuri says, “there’s been a few…”

He shoots a look at Victor before finishing with a shy little push of his glasses up his nose.

“Strange things?”

Dr. Ito’s expression becomes serious, attentive. She leans forwards.

“You have concerns?”

“No, no, just- ”

Yuuri flounders, and Victor jumps in.

“Yuuri’s glowing.”

“He is,” Dr. Ito agrees, just as Yuuri says, “I’m _what_?”

It’s soft, but it’s there. A golden, bronze aura, outlining Yuuri when he’s happy, or content, or just generally not displeased.

Right now he flickers, light shrouded momentarily by bewilderment. He lifts his hands, holds them out and studies them, as if seeing them for the first time.

“There’s also the admirers,” Victor says, matter of factly.

Yuuri drops his hands onto his belly and frowns.

Dr. Ito, who’s steepled her hands before her, nods. Her dark eyes glitter, amused, behind her glasses.

“Moreso than usual?”

“More existent than usual.” Yuuri mutters, just a little petulant.

Victor creeps his own hand over Yuuri’s, sweeps his thumb over the bump. It seems to work, as he relaxes under Victor’s touch, shoots him a soft look.

There’s rustling, and then Dr. Ito’s rifling through papers.

“These sound like divine side-effects, rather than pregnancy ones,” her gazes drifts to the bump, and she adds, “though you could argue that pregnancy is a divine side-effect too.”

“I thought maybe it was hormones,” Yuuri says, sounding utterly unconvinced, “or that I was being paranoid. But then…”

“The cats.”

He nods at Victor, and cradles the bump. Looks thoughtful. Troubled.

He’s the most beautiful thing Victor’s ever seen, and Victor wants to praise him on hands and knees.

Dr. Ito clears her throat, startling both of them out of their pensiveness.

“Ritual.”

They both stare, blankly at her, and she considers them. Then she sighs, looks at Victor.

“Not to make any assumptions, but acts of ritual worship can have these effects.”

“Worship makes squirrels follow me in the park?” Yuuri sounds like she just told him she hated dogs.

“No, worship makes the...divine aspects of your heritage more,” she searches for the word, eventually settles, “apparent.”

Victor sits up straight. Thinks of taking Yuuri’s feet into his lap. Of pressing his mouth to every inch of flesh. Thinks of prayers and offerings and Yuuri, haloed by his own loveliness, on the altar of their bed. He laughs, and both Yuuri and Dr. Ito fix him with bemused looks.

“Ah,” Victor says, feeling the flush settle over his face, and the tickling sprout of petals, “I. May be to blame.”

The doctor gives him a look that screams ‘ _I thought as much but am far too polite to say_ ’.

Yuuri peers at him, and as the penny drops he smiles, looks down bashfully.

“Oh.”

“Give your obvious affiliation to the romantic pantheon-”

Yuuri makes a strangled little sound, but Dr. Ito continues as if he said nothing.

“-it’s probably safe to say that these aspects of your divine heritage have been strengthened or amplified. Combining the physical act of ritual worship with the depth of feeling, feelings associated with your aspect...”

And now Victor makes a helpless noise, drops his head to Yuuri’s shoulder.

She pauses, looks at the two of them, staring back at her with dazed expressions, and coughs.

“Which is to say. You’re part god. The god part of you likes ritual acts of worship in its name,” she touches her ear delicately, “in your case, that would be love and devotion.”

“Hence the glowing,” Yuuri says weakly.

“Hence the glowing.” Dr. Ito agrees.

They’re quiet for a moment, letting it settle over them. Victor sheds orange petals over Yuuri’s shoulder and sits upright, winds his fingers round Yuuri’s over the bump.

Yuuri feels like a burning star beneath his hands. Feels brilliant and bright and there’s a shift in the air.

He looks up to find Dr. Ito giving him a pointed look, and Victor slides his hand, guiltily, to the side of Yuuri’s chair.

“So, everything else is fine? This doesn’t affect the baby?”

“Oh no,” Dr. Ito flaps one hand, “if anything it probably did them the world of good. You can’t beat divine vitality, and thanks to you, Yuuri has it in spades.”

Yuuri doesn’t look thrilled at this statement - but he does look wonderful, vibrant with life.

 

Victor steals stickers when Dr. Ito isn’t looking.

When he and Yuuri are alone in the corridor,  he presses lingering kisses to the inside of Yuuri’s wrists, then sticks the brightly-coloured circles to the same spots. Strokes them down with his thumbs, drinks in the sight of Yuuri staring back.

Yuuri watches him, fondly, with flecks of gold in his eyes.

 

\- - -   - - -    - - -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, and thanks for all your lovely comments!
> 
> (And thank you for bearing with me, esp. with me basically just flaking out to go burrito myself in bed with sudafed.)


	5. Heliotropism

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Yuuri likes Victor looking at him._
> 
>  
> 
> _To be specific, he loves Victor looking at him. Only him. Loves the reassuring weight of his stare. Loves the turn of his silver head to follow Yuuri’s path across a room; wreathed in gold, as he always should be, when sunflowers burst like a halo around his crown._
> 
>  
> 
> _It’s better than sex. Very nearly better than katsudon._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **An important note:** I have **completely rewritten** the first chapter, and tweaked the others to match up. The rewrites were largely to clear up some of the powers/status issues I had with this AU. I also just wasn’t happy with chapter one at all, so it’s been completely overhauled, and the other chapters now reflect this.
> 
> While I’d appreciate people reading the rewritten chapters and letting me know what they think of it, it’s not expected/required (especially as this means the fic is now about twice as long.) It shouldn’t be a big issue if you just want to carry on with this chapter - no major plot changes were made. The Purple Thing is no longer purple, and a non-essential plot element I was going to put into this chapter has been move into chapter one instead, but that’s about it.
> 
> I apologise so, _so_ profusely for the time between the last update and this one. The tl;dr is that I’ve had a bit of a rough year (the highlight of which was getting chicken pox which I do not recommend, -18/10, v itchy.) A more in-depth explanation, if anyone wants to know, is at the end of this chapter. 
> 
> But now that’s out the way - onwards with the literal miracle viktuuri baby!

\- - -   - - -   - - -

Yuuri likes Victor looking at him.

To be specific, he _loves_ Victor looking at him. Only him. Loves the reassuring weight of his stare. Loves the turn of his silver head to follow Yuuri’s path across a room; wreathed in gold, as he always should be, when sunflowers burst like a halo around his crown.

It’s better than sex. Very nearly better than katsudon.

Right now though, Yuuri doesn’t feel looked upon. He feels exposed. Feels like a parody of himself when he sees the way he’s swollen, beyond even his worst off-season weight. Yuuri wants to curl into a ball and never be touched again - not by hands, nor eyes.

His skin feels tight, like he’s overripe and ready to split open. Feels warm to touch and even their softest, well-worn shirts are torture on his skin. He’s hyper-aware of every inch of himself, hasn’t been so self-conscious since the first time he got called fat as a child. And he’s too old now for his mother to wrap him in her arms and tell him he’s perfect as he is (though Victor is making a dedicated effort in that respect.). He’s used to his body being a foreign land unto himself. Being his only for part of the year. He’s _not_ used to actively sharing it with someone else, and while he admires the swell of the bump (the weight of her beneath his hands, the way he’s starting to feel her curious, tentative presence as he goes about his day) he can’t quite accept what’s there.

Yuuri is comfortable with his stomach growing. He’s less comfortable with the way his chest has done the same. How, in the wrong angle, he can ignore the obvious shape of his belly; too obviously pregnant now to have the momentary ghost of panic about his off-season shape that haunted him in the earlier months. His chest though…

It’s a silly, awkward thing to get annoyed about, but it’s the remnants of a chubby childhood welling up in him. His chest grows tender and strange. Feels heavy, and full, and like he might leak - an alien sensation that has him half out of his own mind, disassociating as he tries to make sense of it. Yuuri is vaguely aware that this change also has a reason, but is too disgruntled under the tingling and painful tightness to enjoy the physical evidence of the task his body’s undertaking.

Yuuri’s chafing under a pyjama top, squirming on the sofa and trying to balance his book on his belly (a task infinitely easier about six months ago) as he ponders his current physical state. The words on the page swim in and out of focus; the tingling, itching sensation drawing his chest taut is like static interference, and he’s too aware of himself - of Victor, tucked into the opposite end of the sofa, watching him.

Finally, Yuuri gives in and looks up.

Victor stares back. Shameless. Interested. Gaze somewhere around the middle of Yuuri’s torso.

Yuuri reaches up and places his palm flat over his heart, presses down, tries to push back against the prickling discomfort there.

Victor’s lips part, eyes rapt as surprised, orange petals sprout around his temples.

Yuuri goes back to his book, absently rubbing at his chest, and wonders what the hell that was all about.

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

Being pregnant is tough. Being seven months pregnant in August is _hellish_. The baby seems to feed off Yuuri’s discomfort, twisting and kicking more frequently than before. As though she shares his sentiment of “fuck this, I’m out.”

Yuuri feels tired, past the point of wonder at the magic of making a whole other human being, and the heat’s just made him crabby.  He feels distinctly undivine. Mundane and gross. Frequently sweaty, when he’s not hogging the bathroom for the cool tiles and bathtub.

Victor, whose hair wilts sadly in the humidity, still looks at Yuuri like he’s the best thing he’s ever seen. Even when Yuuri’s pressing his sticky forehead to Victor’s shoulder and grumbling about never leaving the house again.

Most of Yuuri’s shirts are now unbearable. _Unwearable_. If they don’t chafe, they’re too tight, and he’s suddenly hypersensitive to the coarser fabrics on some of them. He refuses Victor’s offer to buy him a whole new wardrobe on the basis that it would require him to leave the house, when all he wants to do is watch awful television and twenty-four hour access to cold showers.

Victor begs him to let him buy two - maybe three - new shirts. Yuuri agrees on the stipulation that he doesn’t have to go with him.

“But if you’re not there to try them on, what’s the point?” Victor pouts up at him, from where he’s got his head pressed against Yuuri’s belly.

Yuuri, miserable after being woken by petulant kicks to his bladder, gives him A Look.

“You just want an excuse to get handsy.”

Victor’s lips curl, the twining petals in his hair flushing pink as he purrs, “since when do I need an excuse?”

Which is, admittedly, true. Yuuri is saved from having to reply when the bump kicks particularly hard - Victor looks delighted (still, and Yuuri loves his perpetual wonder at their baby’s movement, almost as much as Yuuri loves it too - the little reminders that she exists.)

“I’m too hot for this,” he says, and slides down the sofa so he’s lying properly across it. Rubs absently at his belly as he does, and Victor sits up beside him.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come?”

“No, thank you,” Yuuri sighs, “I’m going to have another bath.”

Victor looks very much like he’d rather stay and join him. Which Yuuri isn’t opposed to, but he really does need new shirts. So he nudges Victor, gently, and smiles.

Victor bends down to kiss him, leaves him tingling in his lips, and stands.

“Alright. Do you want anything else while I’m out?”

“No, thanks." Yuuri burrows deeper into the couch. Rubs his chest and Victor’s gaze darts down, to follow the movement, then back up.

He smiles, cheeks pink and hair filled with coral blooms. It’s enough to make Yuuri want to grab him, stop him from going - and it’s only the oppressive warmth and bone-deep discomfort that keep him still. Body trying to melt into the sofa cushions.

Victor goes, with a soft look, and softer command to Makkachin to keep an eye on them. Which is unnecessary, as Makkachin’s not willingly been in a separate room from Yuuri since this whole thing started. But Yuuri appreciates it all the same, and he waves as Victor steps through the door. Misses him even as he’s going.

He lies there a few minutes more. Just breathing, tapping his fingers against his own skin and imagining he can feel a presence in the room with him. Watching and knowing; the bump fidgeting while Yuuri seriously considers the pros and cons of just going to live in the bathroom. Finally, after what feels like an hour, he hauls himself up and makes his way through the bedroom to the ensuite.

Makkachin sits like a soldier in the doorway as Yuuri runs himself a cool bath. Her beady eyes are fixed on him, and Yuuri isn’t sure if he’s flattered to be so well-protected, or disgruntled at the idea that he needs protection. He’s _pregnant_ , not porcelain.

“I’m not going to drown, you know,” he tells her, shucking off his pants (shirts abandoned, languishing unloved in the bedroom drawers) and climbing into the tub.

Makkachin huffs, pads closer as Yuuri sinks into the cool water. Fixes him with a look and drops her chin onto the side of the bath with a whine.

Yuuri pats her head with one hand, rests his other over his belly button. Mirrors the stroking motion to try and cajole the bump into settling enough that Yuuri could at least _try_ to have an afternoon nap.

He’s not successful.

“What do you suggest?” He asks Makkachin, who sticks her tongue out and pants at him. Happy and greedy for his attention. Yuuri sighs and lies back in the bath.

“Of course you’re happy, you’ve not got a fist in your kidney.”

The baby kicks, to prove his point. Makkachin whuffs in agreement.

Yuuri can’t hold it against her. Not when he’s feeling both loved and lazy. Liquid with the weight of the August heat.  He stops stroking both of them, dips his hands under the water and spills it over his stomach. Feels like he’s bleeding affection into the water, drowning him and the baby in it - Makka’s uncomplicated devotion mixing with his own in each sweet shift of the pool.

Eventually Yuuri dozes to the sound of Makkachin’s tail thumping steadily on the floor, and he dreams of a persistent, hummingbird heartbeat.

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

Victor brings home what seems like half the store. Only a couple of the tops are floatier than Yuuri expected, and he demands a grumpy, sleepy kiss before he’ll try anything on.

Yuuri makes a beeline for a soft, grey t-shirt that looks a lot like Victor’s favourite workout shirt; it’s softer than Makka’s fur under Yuuri’s fingers, and he tugs it on. It sits nicely. Not too snug, though a little tighter around his belly. It hangs off him, so his chest isn’t touching the material.

Success, he thinks, though not quite in the way intended.

When he looks up from where he’s fingering the material, Victor’s watching him with a tilted little smile.

Yuuri feels it all the way up his spine.

\- - -   - - -   - - -

Yuuri’s waited for a moment alone several weeks now. A moment to slide on the slip he bought all those months ago. To run his shaking hands over it, and admire the way it sits on him. He’s found himself stretching, turning before the mirror at least five times since buying the damn thing (and subsequently hiding it from Victor.)

Its colour is soft on him, and some days he feels like divinity. All rounded edges. Swollen and thrumming with a love only he gets to see. He thinks of Victor blushing, going dark-eyed, and he thinks of the restless need underneath his skin. (He thinks of Victor’s hand sliding the material from his shoulders, of pulling at ribbon and lace.)

Then Yuuri calmly removes the slip, and hides it where neither dog nor husband can find it.

Other days...other days Yuuri looks, and he can’t help but see the awkward way he holds himself, folding under the weight of pregnancy. He feels like a beached whale. He tears the material from his skin on these days, and launches it towards their wardrobe like a grenade.

The baby kicks until he sighs, retrieves the clothing from the floor and tucks it out of sight. She kicks until he’s wrapped himself, miserably, between the bedsheets.

Talking to her helps, weirdly. Helps with the burgeoning sense of shame, with the truth of what he sees in the mirror. When the old doubt begins to creep back in, to turn the world jagged at its seams, Yuuri feels the weight of his belly. Warm, real, heavy with their future together. She’s a responsive counterpoint to the tendrils unfurling somewhere in his brain, and the nonsense he spills out to her in the quiet of their bedroom. With each word Yuuri gives her, he knows that what he sees in the mirror isn’t real. Not completely.

He touches his belly button, chases the stronger sensation of motion across his middle, and he knows that there’s something in him - only him -  that Victor appreciates. _Adores_. Something underneath the shifting terrain of Yuuri’s body. Their child kicks, and fear becomes faded.

“Sometimes it’s easier to know,” he explains to the lazy movement beneath his fingertips, “than it is to believe.”

 

\- - -   - - -   - - - 

Victor, ever happy to fulfil Yuuri’s every want - no matter how frivolous - goes to the shop for a few groceries one evening. They’re running out of a few bits and pieces and, divine or not, they’ve got to eat. Also Yuuri’s developed a sudden and violent craving for citrus; his mouth watering at the idea of straight-up demolishing the lemons they’ve got in the fridge for god knows what reason.

Victor finds him when he’s halfway through one (“How are you even eating that?” he asks, horrified, before removing the rest of them from Yuuri’s reach.) So, off he goes, with a list of necessities and a plea for Yuuri to not eat anymore fruit until Victor brings back some oranges that he can eat like a normal person.

Yuuri waits approximately two minutes before darting into the bedroom to retrieve the slip.

It’s still there, coiled into a soft pile where Yuuri last stashed it. Shimmering like an accusation when he lifts it up. He shoots a glance through the door towards the living room - Makkachin’s dozing on her bed, and Yuuri knows Victor’ll be at least twenty minutes.

So, he figures. No time like the present.

He tears his shirt and jeans off. Considers, for a moment, before climbing out of his comfortable boxers as well. He roots through the drawers for the silvery panties he bought not too long ago and manages to get them on without keeling over, or them cutting too tight into him. He can’t really see them on himself over the bump at this point, but the seams are just the right level of pressure without cutting off circulation.

Not the best fit, he thinks, but Victor does seem to enjoy reminders that Yuuri is that little bit plusher in the thighs than he is.

Yuuri pauses. His heartbeat oddly steady, even as his nerves rattle throughout his body. He could present himself to Victor like this. Pose ridiculously on the bed spread, wearing nothing but the underwear, and Yuuri knows full well Victor would very much appreciate it. Would probably offer up a prayer to deities he knows, personally, for the gift he’s about to receive (and that’s a weird, voyeuristic thought that still makes Yuuri’s skin crawl a little.)

He looks down at the slip. Its wispy straps, the silken material and the lacy adornments. There’s ribbon tying it at the back, a pretence at chastity that falls apart as easily as the material itself. Everything about it screams ‘Take Me Off’, which is, if he’s honest, entirely the reason he bought it. Visions of Victor between Yuuri’s knees, parting it and _him_.

Yuuri puts it on.

It’s a little tighter than when he first bought it, clinging like a second skin. Oddly soothing over his middle but irritating over his chest.

Well, he thinks, Victor’s going to be taking it off in a short while, so he can tolerate it.

He smooths it down, enjoying the feel of it. Cool against his skin. The bump flutters, then quiets, as though stating her approval; Yuuri pads over to the mirror to inspect himself.

It looks...great. Yuuri twists a little on the spot, and huh. The change in size means it now sits a little higher, showing off a little more of his thighs. When he turns further round, he sees that it also gives a tantalising flash of ass - currently wrapped in silvery lace, and it’s. It’s a good look.

He looks divine, and feels _fucking fantastic_.

The jangling of his nerves has turned into something more anticipatory, and Yuuri runs his hands through his hair to drag it back in as close an approximation to its slicked back form as he can get without gel. He feels powerful. He’s also got about fifteen minutes to kill before Victor’s due back. So he picks up his abandoned clothes from the floor and shoves them into the laundry basket - swiping his thumb over the grey material of his shirt and he barely registers that they feel cold under his fingers.

He turns back to the bed and spreads himself across it. Props himself up on the pillows, then lays down with a sigh. After a moment he takes his glasses off, drops them on the bedside table, and returns to his original position.

It’s oddly comforting, the pressure of the slip against his skin, and Yuuri knows if he shuts his eyes he runs a serious risk of falling asleep. Which would be nice, but not exactly how he wanted the slip to get used. So he stares upwards, making stories out of the blurry shapes that make up the ceiling, (they all seem to feature Victor, crowned with stars, and for a strange, familiar moment, Yuuri feels a thread of autumn chill curl through him.)

His chest is tight again, and he rubs it, absently - the relief isn’t quite complete, but it’s enough, and he’s able to forget his new body for a moment. Sink into the mattress, weightless, and just be. He drops his hands to play with the hem of the slip, thumbs brushing the curve of his abdomen. He falls into a rhythm there. Tracing the threads in the hemline to the pattern of his thoughts; strangely languid, lapping at the sides instead of whirling like a maelstrom.

Yuuri lies there a while, waiting for his target to return. Ready to catch, to reel him in. He brings his hand up to idly scratch at his collarbone, and catches the lace of the top as he does; Yuuri pauses and presses down more deliberately over his left nipple.

It feels strange. Too sensitive. Most importantly, it’s _damp_.

What are the odds, he wonders, that the slip’s hiding place was breached?

The distinct lack of smell informs him that Makkachin isn’t to blame for the wetness (not that he would ever accuse her of doing such a thing, as she is a noble, _most good_ dog), and he definitely didn’t feel it when he was admiring the fit before. Which leaves him with the fact that the slip was dry when he put it on.

Yuuri sits up, slowly, and looks down. He presses his fingers against the lace of the slip - against the flesh of his chest, and - oh.

The material is dampened, in dark little circles around his nipples and for a moment. For one, blissful moment, Yuuri is _relieved_. He stares uselessly at his own fingers, still pressed against himself; he presses a little harder, as if to make sure they’re still there. They very much are still connected to his hands, and he drops them into his lap.

“...Okay.” He says.

Then he looks up toward the heavens to heave a long-suffering sigh.

Yuuri knew this was going to happen at some point. That pregnancy and a swollen chest generally meant that at some point, he would be -

 _Lactating_ , his brain hisses. Like it’s a curse word.

“It’s perfectly natural.” He reminds himself, while his mind does an anxious zig-zag between dubious acceptance and fully-fledged panic.

There’s not a lot Yuuri can do about that though, and he’s well-versed in wrangling his own thoughts when they get stuck in-between one realisation or another. Like spiders, scrabbling frantically at the glass as Yuuri patiently takes them to the window of his thoughts, and hurls them into the wild beyond. What he can do, is one of three things: one, wallow; two, he can get changed and clean his clothes; three, some combination of one and two.

He decides after a second of uselessly poking his own chest. Halfway expecting it to burst like a dam in a cartoon, his finger the only thing keeping the tide back. What _actually_ happens is it feels kind of unpleasant and weird, and his nipples remain unmoved if a little bit sore. So, Yuuri gets up to grab his shirt from the laundry basket and set about doing the grown-up thing.

He gets about two steps from the bed when the front door clatters open, and Victor shouts from the living room.

“Yuuri! They didn’t have oranges, so I got tangerines instead,” he announces, while Yuuri freezes mid-step, “either way you can leave the lemons alone now.”

There’s rustling, the sound of bags being put down and Yuuri remains still. Stricken by indecision, feet and stomach turning cold. His heart thuds, and he is instantly aware of Victor’s reaching out in response to it. The concerned ripple of his affection. Yuuri turns towards the bedroom door as Victor’s footsteps draw closer - and then thud to a stop.

“Um.” Yuuri says, twisting his hands in the slip and facing him.

Victor stands in the doorway, vivid, purple blurs flourishing in his hair; Yuuri can just about make out that he’s staring at Yuuri with a slack, struck expression.

Yuuri sits on the bed again. Attempts to be smooth, but mostly just sort of drops onto it with a soft flump.

“Is that the-”

“Yes.”

Victor staggers over, stands in front of Yuuri and there’s. A lot of...something in the air around him. A breeze over Yuuri’s skin, setting the hairs on his body on end, his heart dancing in his ribcage.

Yuuri looks up and Victor is staring back. Taking him in. His gaze travelling down until Yuuri crosses his arms over his chest.  Then Victor slumps onto the bed, leaning close, and resting one hand on Yuuri’s knee.

“I wanted...to surprise you,” Yuuri says. Tucks his fingers under his armpits, trying not to be too distracted by the way Victor’s thumb is stroking his skin.

Victor nods, eyes clear and voice thick when he replies, “I thought I had to earn it?”

Yuuri smirks. Can’t help the smug little bite he puts into his words.

“At the rate you were going, you weren’t going to find it until after the baby was born,” he drops one arm, to catch Victor’s other hand, which is reaching out to touch the straps of the slip.

Victor smiles a tiny, secret smile. The one only Yuuri gets to see. And he lets Yuuri pin his wandering hand to the bed between them, while the other one sits on his exposed thigh.

“That, and I bought you oranges.”

“And you bought me oranges,” Yuuri agrees. He squeezes the arm still covering his chest tighter - hitches his breath at the sensation, which catches Victor’s attention.

Victor runs his free hand up Yuuri’s thigh. His side. Tickling a trail that leaves Yuuri shaking, in spite of everything. He stops when he reaches Yuuri’s fingers, before gently prying them away. Pulling Yuuri’s hand towards him. His arm away from his chest.

Yuuri momentarily wonders if he could whip the slip off before Victor sees the stains. Knows it’s pointless when Victor looks down and says, soft and low, “ _oh_.”

He _stares_. Lips parted, as though about to speak - or about to drink - and Victor, the most shameless, forthright person that Yuuri has the joy of knowing, _blushes_.

Yuuri just watches, mesmerised. This is isn’t the soft dusting of colour he’s seen Victor get before. He’s pink, and his flowers are teeming, and he’s holding Yuuri’s hands like they’re all that’s keeping him upright.

“Is that…” He finally manages to say. Sounding far away but oh, so present. Lifting his gaze for little looks at Yuuri’s face, then being dragged back down again.

Yuuri isn’t quite sure what to do.

If he lets Victor keep looking, then he keeps being on display. Exposed like he’s felt all the last few weeks. It doesn’t matter so much that right now, that sensation is nestling in the back of his mind. Sputtering and sparking pleasantly, _delighted_ to be an exhibit in the gallery Victor makes of his body.

The other option is to cover up again, but Yuuri is nothing but a glutton for Victor and his many faces. His each and every reaction. This is a new one, and Yuuri wants to catalogue it. Feels set alight with intrigue, taking in every minute twitch in Victor’s face.

“Do you,” he starts, “want to…”

Victor straightens, sits bolt upright. Bound so tight by vibrating restraint that it should be painful (and resembling, to an unnerving degree, Makkachin when she’s waiting for a treat.)

“Yes. Please.” He says, words falling out of his mouth like he can’t wait to be rid of them.

Any anxiety has burned away under curiosity, anticipation, so Yuuri lifts Victor’s hands in his and draws them slowly to touch the ruined lace. Guide his fingers over the feel of the material, and the firmness of his nipple.

The touch is alarming; his body reacts before he can really even make sense of what he’s feeling. The warmth of Victor’s fingers apparently enough to leave him quivering, arching slightly into his hands. Yuuri lets go, leaves Victor’s fingers there, and tries to remember how to breathe. He’s just about got it down, when Victor _moves_. Traces the outline of his nipples, the rise and fall of flesh beneath his fingertips. Brushes just _so_ , and makes Yuuri jerk into the sensation with a surprised little sound.

“Yuuri,” Victor says, voice a low, reverent thing. “You astound me.”

Yuuri doesn’t have it in him to snort, to roll his eyes. Too distracted by sensation, and more than willing to drown in sentiment if it means it’ll get Victor to do that thing with his thumb again. He slides forward, into Victor’s lap, and leans in.

Victor shuts his eyes, tilts his head up for a kiss. But Yuuri stops a hair’s breadth away, rests his forehead against Victor’s and just breathes him in. The sight, the sound, the smell of him. The press of his hands against Yuuri’s body, the swell of love-affection-want in his heart. A torrent of feeling, rushing out to meet the tidal pull of Yuuri’s own.

“Touch me,” Yuuri tells him. Heart in his mouth, and cock straining against the soft fabric of the panties he now, quite seriously, regrets putting on.

Victor’s eyes - dark like an eclipse - fly open, fix on Yuuri, and then a tremor runs through him. Quakes them both together, before he complies and starts mapping the land of Yuuri’s chest. Stroking, soothing, then sliding one arm round Yuuri, supporting his weight as best he can, while he slips the other down to Yuuri’s thigh, skirts under the slip.

He brushes against the panties and pauses. Actually stops. Breathes out, long and slow, before he continues moving his hand upwards. Bunching the silk of the slip up around Yuuri’s belly button. It’s not the most elegant Yuuri’s ever felt, but it’s in the top ten of the most powerful moments he’s had: Victor’s hand hot on his skin, eyes dark and devoted. Shaking apart for Yuuri’s next demand.

Well.

Yuuri knows _exactly_ what to do with that.

He twists, so the straps of the slip slide down his shoulders (it’s a skill), and he rolls his hips pointedly. It’s a little awkward with his belly, but the friction is enough that Victor’s breath hitches. Fingers turn shaky as he drags them up, over the bump, to Yuuri’s chest again. Where he pauses, toying with the lace trim. Almost...shy. Waiting for further instruction - which is always nice, but not particularly what Yuuri wants right now.

“ _Victor_ ,” he chides, and Victor bows his head just a fraction, before laying his hands on him proper. Not an experimental touch, but one of decision. Of desire.

He traces the lace first, running parallel to where Yuuri needs touch the most. Following ley-lines of pleasure only Victor can see. It’s teasing, but not tortuous, and then Victor brings his index and middle fingers together. Sweeps them down, either side of Yuuri’s chest, in a spiral that ends with the damp spots - with the leaking peaks of his nipples.

And there he stops.

Yuuri wriggles a little while Victor continues to wait for _something_. The pressure isn’t enough. It’s the crease of a seam, the friction of too-tight jeans; Yuuri throbs between his legs, and watches Victor’s enraptured face change with his movements.

 _The panties were definitely a mistake_ , Yuuri decides. The soft material now rubbing, constraining, and powerful as he feels, he’s helpless against the cage of material.

 _(A love god laid low by lingerie,_ he thinks somewhere in the fog of movement and 'press there, yes, just like that'.)

He takes one of Victor’s hands and presses it firmly down. Arches, rocks so that his body _slides_ against Victor’s warm palm - his vision goes for a second, a blank space of _relief_. So he does it again.

This time Victor presses his thumbs harder. Draws them down as Yuuri goes up, and it sends a thunderbolt through Yuuri’s body. Crackling and arcing away along his nerves. Victor isn’t tracing shapes now, instead he’s moulding flesh, and the fraught, tight feeling that’s been lingering for a while. He bows his nose to Yuuri’s collar, places a kiss there just as he brings his hands up and _pinches._

Yuuri’s fingers tighten around Victor’s shoulders. He digs them in, needs the purchase against the wave his body breaks under, and that’s it. He needs - he _needs_. He manages to unlatch his grip, tries to tug at the slip without elbowing Victor in the face (it’s such a _good_ face.)

“Wait, wait-” Victor gasps into Yuuri’s skin, before he’s dropping his hands down and back - to the ribbon holding the slip together. Tugs once before it’s falling apart in his hands, unspooling round Yuuri like a curtain; and then his fingers dive down to the panties, pull on the lacing of the back but only succeeds in making them looser round Yuuri’s hips.

They struggle together. Ungainly, frantic, and if anyone who’d seen them on the ice were ever to witness it, Yuuri’s fairly certain their reputations as embodiments of grace and elegance would be ruined. But finally they come together, as they always do, and the slip is thrown over the side of the bed. The panties all but ripped off, while Yuuri lies himself back and down, under Victor who bites kisses up the length of his body. A wet, warm trail up to Yuuri’s chest.

“You’re too dressed,” Yuuri pants, as Victor sucks what will inevitably be an embarrassing lovebite just below his chest.

Victor, without missing a beat, starts unbuttoning his (now very rumpled) shirt. Bites and kisses round Yuuri’s skin as he wrestles his way out of his own clothing, before sitting up - straddling Yuuri as best he can - and flinging it to parts unknown. He looks like he’s just run a marathon, and purple petals drift from his head down onto Yuuri.

He’s gorgeous, and Yuuri is too taken aback with want to feel self-conscious. Too lost in the urgent need twining through him, the strange way hunger hangs in his chest this time, even as his cock twitches at the thought of release.

Yuuri arches away from the bed, enjoys the way Victor’s eyes follow the movement.

Then he drops down, caging Yuuri in even as he’s careful of the bump, and resumes his mission to kiss every part of Yuuri’s chest except for where Yuuri needs it.

There’s no room in his head but for his pulse in his ears; the void carved out by lust, that Victor is filling with touch and love and his low, smooth sounds. He slides his hand up Yuuri’s ribs, frames his chest with the warm weight of it and - and he looks up, a moment of question in his eyes.

Yuuri, who’s spent the better part of three weeks hating everything about this - about his body and its machinations - couldn’t deny Victor if he tried. Finds, amongst the last threads of coherent thought, that he doesn’t _want_ to. Because weird and alien is doable. And apparently, does things to Victor. Which Yuuri is always a fan of.

So he says nothing, tilts his head and watches the question turn to knowing. Determination.

Victor leans back down, and licks an experimental stripe over Yuuri’s nipples; the sudden shock of heat makes him yelp, and his hips jerk up. Searching for friction for his leaking cock. He grasps at the bedsheets as Victor looks up at him from under his fringe, and lets his mouth drift. Leaves open-mouthed kisses across the swell of Yuuri’s flesh, follows his own glistening trail back before teasing him with teeth.

Yuuri scratches the sheets, and when Victor’s mouth closes around his nipple it’s a shock as much as it’s not. The wet heat he’s been needing, and ever so slightly too much for his tender chest.

Victor’s lips walk the borderline of painful and perfect, and then there’s _pressure_. He sucks and Yuuri jolts, hears his own rapturous groan echo around the bedroom walls as something in his head, heart, _chest_ , loosens, and begins to flow.

It’s a relief, the likes of which he’s never known. Peace and pleasure leaking out of him, past Victor’s finger and lips - Yuuri’s satisfaction resting on his tongue. Yuuri squirms for want of being able to do anything else. Pressed gently but firmly down by Victor’s weight, coiling tighter with Victor’s ministrations. Yuuri’s body is a mess of shakes and shivers, and he thinks, with a surprised gaps, that he could come from this alone.

Victor pulls away, breathing heavy and wet-lipped. He rolls Yuuri’s nipple between two fingers, making him whine. The tiniest pressure, before he’s dipping down to latch onto the other side. Teeth grazing accidentally, still squeezing, manipulating the nipple he’s just abandoned. Rough, almost thoughtless, and it’s definitely too much now. Has Yuuri whimpering and writhing, desperation driving him to clutch and cry out.

“Victor, Victor,” he hears himself chanting, a moan that bleeds into a sigh.

The tightness explodes; expands out in a cloudy nebula, and Yuuri _knows_ that this will be it now. He’s been ruined for anything else. Apparently he can come just from having his nipples manhandled, and no one else can ever know.

Victor’s eyes are sharp, glasslike on him; he sucks until again, Yuuri flows and -

“Oh -” Yuuri sobs, just as the world explodes behind his eyelids.

He comes apart, then together. All released coils of tension scattering him away from himself, only faintly aware of spilling out and over his own shape. He sees white, then nothing, body and mind caught on one long high note. It’s a moment, but it’s an eternity, and then it’s Victor knitting his parts back into one whole.

Soft touches to his chest, over his heart, draw Yuuri back into the bedroom. He blinks and there’s Victor, hovering over him with wide eyes and mouth in a slack-jawed ‘O’. Still looking beautiful but in disarray, and his mouth is glossy with -

With Yuuri.

Yuuri forgoes embarrassment in favour of feeling boneless, and smiles up at him.

Victor, petals turning pale, smiles back.

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

“You liked it then?”

Yuuri’s curled on his side, slip abandoned on the floor, and tracing shapes on his stomach that the bump contentedly follows with lazy little kicks.

Victor drops his hand down, places it over Yuuri’s to join in the gentle chase.

“I like _you_. Of course I liked it.”

He sounds so earnest, as if offended at the idea that he might not like anything involving Yuuri, that Yuuri has to take a second to just. Bask in it. Take in all of the moment, part by part. The excited movements under his belly button, the steady stroke of their hands together. Victor’s sleepy stare, suffused with love and - deeper down, buried beneath it all, fond amusement.

His body, the new shape of it, seems like a distant island in his mind’s landscape now. A far-off fact rather than a looming terror.

He stretches, tangles their legs together and absently rubs at his chest. Still a little sore, but dry. Lighter somehow. And that’s going to take getting used to. No longer terrifying, or unspeakable, but just...sort of odd. New.

He can tolerate it. For the baby. For the three of them in their little family.

Victor’s free hand sits just beneath Yuuri’s left nipple and Yuuri looks down to watch it. Idly takes in the sight of his own swollen chest without feeling like a foreigner in his own body; there’s something hesitant in Victor’s movements. The twitch of his thumb is just this side of cautious, in spite of what, exactly, it was doing about five minutes ago.

Yuuri blinks.

“You... _like_ this, don’t you?”

There’s a wonderfully pregnant pause - Victor’s hand pulling back to punctuate the way his whole body tightens. Then, he unfurls, pulls Yuuri closer and buries his face into to crown of his head, where he mutters, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Yuuri smiles into Victor’s collarbone, pinches his side to produce an offended yelp.

“I see. I married a pervert.”

“Yuuri,” Victor pulls back, face stern, flowers quivering amaryllis now, “I’m the child of a fertility god. I am virility made flesh -”

“Modest, too,” Yuuri points out, and earns a biting little kiss for his troubles.

Pinprick pleasure blossoms out from where Victor nips at his lips and Yuuri sits back with a satisfied sigh. Smiles up at Victor, who looks as much like he’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar as he does utterly transported.

“You continue to surprise me.” He says.

The bump is still, and Yuuri is _happy_. He thinks of where they started. Of staring, hopeless and hard-headed, at posters in his childhood bedroom. He thinks of dreams of red-stars and chilly air, and a squirming, human tapestry, threaded through with him and Victor both.

Yuuri touches his fingertips together over his stomach and shuts his eyes.

 _Me too,_ he thinks.

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The full (rambly) explanation for my absence ( if you don’t want to know, feel free to skip to the end!):
> 
> I was pretty much on an unofficial writing hiatus since January this year, thanks to various real life factors. (Namely: several bouts of illness, completing a nine month qualification, having a nervous breakdown, leaving a career in optics and sorting out new career/life direction.)
> 
> It’s been a bit of a busy year, and tbh it was kind of up in the air if I was really gonna keep on writing fic beyond bashing out kink meme fills on the sly. I enjoy writing, but had real trouble finding the mental or physical energy to do so. Having it hanging over me was just adding more anxiety to an already stressful time. But...fingers crossed, I’m on the mend, and you guys’ comments and kudos have kept me determined to get back to work on finishing this fic!
> 
> I did, however, want to rewrite the first chapter first. Because I’ve not been happy with that chapter since I published it, and it was affecting my feelings toward this fic on the whole. I then made the probably (definitely) foolish decision to rewrite that chapter before finishing the rest, which, given the rewrite ended up being nearly as long as the original four chapters in total, ended up delaying me working on the last three chapters a fair bit. But it’s done, and this is on its way to being done, and I am so sorry it’s been so long. 
> 
> The next chapter is nearly finished and should be up in a week's time (I would have posted it at the same time but it got...longer than expected.) **ETA:** Due to some RL stuff this is gonna be a bit longer, but will def be complete by the end of the year! Sorry to keep you waiting even longer D:
> 
> Thank you for being patient! I hope you enjoyed the new chapter and here’s to new starts all round (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧


	6. Creeping Ivy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Divine births, historically, run the gamut of ‘mildly disconcerting’ to ‘horrifying, awful, would not recommend’. It makes for discomfiting reading early on, and gets even worse as Yuuri enters the last month. For every story of an otherwise ordinary human labour, there’s someone excitedly detailing days of agony. Mind-bending pain._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I live! Apologies for the late posting again - literally the day after I posted the last chapter I got offered a new job, and sorting that out has taken up much of my time (which is also why I’ve been slow on replying to comments, sorry D:) but it's here! It's done! It's _ready_!
> 
> You may notice the chapter numbers have changed - this is because this chapter not only ran long, but also just sort of...felt like a nice, good place to end. There is another story I have in this universe (for the original challenge’s Free Day prompt), but I feel it’ll work fine as a standalone, and I’ll be working on that at some point in the coming year, but it felt a bit strange to tack it on to the end of this chapter tbh.
> 
> So, happy new year! And I hope you enjoy this last chapter :D

\- - -   - - -   - - -

The thing about making a baby (making fingers and toes and tissue and bone) is that it takes time. _All_ the time. All day, every day, for nine long months. Yuuri, who’d been planning on enjoying a few months off after retiring, is nine months into life outside of competition and _slowly going insane_.

Time with Victor is great. Time with Makkachin and the rest of his family is great. But he’s also fed up of waiting. Of wanting and not being able to _do_. He is not, by nature, a particularly passive person, burdened as he is by a tendency towards pigheadedness and a need to make what he wants into reality. Which is mostly just a nice way of saying _he needs this baby out of him as soon as possible, universe, please._

Of course he loves her, her gentle movements and inquisitive little spirit. He also would like very much to be able to sleep in his preferred position. To not be constantly shepherded by his dog (much as he enjoys Makka’s company), and, most importantly, to be able to skate again. He loses himself, one afternoon, in imagining tiny little beginner’s boots. Holding his baby’s hands and teaching her to love the ice the way he does. Then he gets lost in imagining skating itself, _by_ himself. It feels selfish, somehow, but still he indulges, all too aware he doesn’t have much longer _to_ indulge.

His frustration is not helped by the fact that despite knowing when, roughly, the baby’s due, he’s got no idea _how_ the birth’s going to happen.

Divine births, historically, run the gamut of ‘mildly disconcerting’ to ‘horrifying, awful, would not recommend’. It makes for discomfiting reading early on, and gets even worse as Yuuri enters the last month. For every story of an otherwise ordinary human labour, there’s someone excitedly detailing days of agony. Mind-bending pain.

(“I told my partner that if they came near me ever again I’d kill them,” a commenter on one forum cheerily declares, “I even said I hoped our baby grew up a bastard!”

There’s an overabundance of laughing emojis, and Yuuri has to leave the forum for the sake of his own sanity.)

For every tale of torture, there’s a story of blissful ignorance. Not even a twinge in the days preceding labour. Utter nothingness, before the parents are overcome by an unusual sense of serene well-being. The sensation that everything is as it should be, promptly followed by being woken in the early hours by a spectral, sparkling shape at the end of the bed handing over a squalling infant before disappearing into nothingness.

Yuuri isn’t sure which idea is least appealing. As he hurtles towards - and then past - the due date he loses sleep. Lies in their bed, holding the bump while staring up at the ceiling and wondering, _how much longer until we meet?_ And, _oh god, what if you burst out of me like Alien?_

(Wondering, in some small part, if it’s not relief he’s feeling. If there’s some way his fears are clouding the whole thing, if she’s listening to his anxieties and resolutely staying put.)

He wakes up, the day after the baby was supposed to arrive, with a jolt and a yelp, and his stomach eerily still. Tendrils of a nightmare involving rather more chest bursting than he’s happy with still unfurling in his mind. His chest pounds, and he reaches out without thinking - with hands and heart both, to grasp at something, anything more solid than the space between him and sleep. He reaches for Victor, who’s steady and present, an anchor in the bedsheets. He reaches for the baby and instead of the fluttery presence he normally feels, he scrabbles. Caught in that moment between a jump and a fall.

All idle curiosity from the bump gone. Absent. As though she was never present.

The thick, drowsy fear turns sharp. Chips through his daze like an ice-pick, until he puts a hand over his navel and receives a sleepy little kick in response; she kicks relief into his bones, and herself into wakefulness. The presence in the back of his mind reappearing, groggy and petulant, as if he’s pulled them out of deep sleep with his fear. Not even born and already complaining about being dragged out of bed.

Yuuri sighs, seeps back into a liquid, contented spread against the mattress. He apologises to her under his breath and pats his stomach until she quiets again. The absence wasn’t empty space, he realises as she sinks back into sleep, but the camouflage of tiredness - the foetus equivalent of draping a blanket over a birdcage. (And that’s an idea he didn’t need at god knows what time in the morning, but here he is.)

He sidles closer to Victor who’s snoring, oblivious, beside him. Silver hair threaded through with azaleas, which seem to shimmer in the moonlight. Little scarlet beacons guiding Yuuri home as he presses against Victor’s back the best he can.

Victor’s heavy breathing is familiar, panacea enough for Yuuri to hook himself and the baby into. Soothe the pair of them with the rhythm of Victor’s presence, the love that pours out every inch of him.

It washes over them, in gentle waves, and eventually he’s lulled back into a dreamless sleep.

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

“Still?” He asks the next morning, when he finds Victor pouting at his own reflection in the bathroom. Plucking at the red flowers still sitting, almost expectantly, around his temples.

“We’ll have to make sure Makka doesn’t get at them,” Victor sighs, as he leans into the hand Yuuri reaches to thread through his hair.

When Yuuri pulls his hand away, a single flowerhead comes with it. Sits heavy, like a gemstone, in his palm, petals pointing outwards before curling in. They wilt, sadly, as he deposits it on the counter, and it makes something chilly settle in his belly. Beneath the bump, whose movements are lethargic, still apparently disgruntled by Yuuri waking her with his panic. A pre-birth pout, and Yuuri lets himself have a small, secret smile at that; at Victor still frowning, petulant, at himself in the mirror.

“Do you want to go for another walk?” Victor offers, when he finally gives up on his flowers. Looking over at Yuuri with bright eyes. Affection and excitement fill the gaps between the spiky peaks of his nerves, and it’s almost overwhelming, until it’s not.

Yuuri shakes his head. They tried walking the other day and all he got for his trouble was sore feet and Victor far too excited at having a legitimate excuse to massage them for it to possible be decent. Which isn’t to say he didn’t enjoy it, but it didn’t, on the whole, serve its intended purpose.

Victor seems to know exactly what Yuuri’s thinking and sweeps him into a playful kiss, swaying them both in as close an echo of a dance as they can manage with a third-wheel.

“Any day now,” he murmurs, so full of faith that Yuuri can’t find it in him to be irritated. ‘Any day now’ is apparently all anyone can say to him at the minute. He suspects it’s going to be responsible for at least one attempted maiming. But for Victor, Yuuri just nods and gently shoves him away to get at the counter himself.

“There’s a few other things I want to try,” he says, grabbing toothpaste and grimacing when the bump kicks once, forcefully, apparently _not_ a fan of mint. “Old Wive’s Tales, mostly, but it’s better than sitting around doing nothing.”

“Did Phichit send a list?”

Victor sounds amused, and not at all smug about guessing correctly, which is the only reason he’s allowed to remain in the bathroom, being handsome and charming and all the disgusting things morning people like him are before 10:00am. (His relative humility is one of three reasons he’s still allowed in the bathroom with Yuuri of a morn, the others being ‘I love him’, and ‘his abs’.)

Yuuri brushes his teeth without incident, (the bump interrupting once to fidget irritability at the taste of mint,) and lets his mind wander as he spits into the sink. It seems almost silly to be deliberately trying to invite something he’s in two minds about. But, at the same time, Yuuri doesn’t see the point in putting off the inevitable. Wants to have and hold his baby as much as he’s scared of the suddenly Very Real idea of her.

He also doesn’t want to find out what happens if he needs to be medically induced, because god knows what sort of labour will await him then. Fate is generally disinclined to bow to the whims of doctors and sciences, and Yuuri wants to invite neither Fate’s displeasure nor Fate himself to the birth. Even if that means having to tick every Labour Inducing Myth off his list.

It’s not a comprehensive list, but to be honest, Yuuri is largely grabbing at straws now. There’s only so many times a man can think ‘we’re ready for you now, please come out’ towards his belly-button before it starts to feel like a madness mantra. Like he’s talking nonsense, to a particularly obstinate brick wall. So he’s willing to at least _try_ the list.

Victor hovers, somewhere behind him, until he’s finished, and when Yuuri turns around he’s immediately swept into an embrace. Victor’s face pressed to his neck, hands warm on Yuuri’s waist.

“Breakfast first?” He mutters into Yuuri’s skin, and Yuuri touches his fingers to the thickest flower blossoming on Victor’s head. Vivid red. Silk under his fingers, and when he touches it a shiver runs up his spine.

Yuuri melts into the hug, lets Victor’s weight chase the cold away, and he presses a kiss to his crown - gets a noseful of floral scent. Earthy and safe and home.

“Victor,” Yuuri whispers, “it’s time to break out the tea.”

The tea in question was a gift from, of all people, Chris. Shipped over in a bright, floral package that on closer inspection turned out to be just chock-full of dicks. (Yuuri kind of wants to know where he gets this stuff from, but he knows that asking would result in more nudity than he’s entirely comfortable with from Christophe, with only a 50% chance of getting the answer.) He apparently got tired of Victor lamenting that the baby has yet to arrive, and sent it over with a helpful note telling them _Grand-Mère Giacommetti swears by this XOXO_ , followed by instructions from the woman herself in neat, small script.

The more Yuuri learns about Christophe’s family, the less he’s sure he knows - and certainly not sure he _wants_ to. He put drinking the tea off until he’s halfway through the list. Which, conveniently, leaves him here, this morning, stirring and boiling water while Victor grooms Makkachin. Chattering to her in the background, soothing music for Yuuri’s morning miserly thoughts.

When he gets a whiff of it, the smell instantly makes Yuuri think of Victor’s awful jam-tea abominations. The raspberry leaves are somehow simultaneously too strong and too weak, overpowered by something sweetly artificial. It smells, frankly, _awful_ for what appears to be a luxury brand. He scrunches up his face as he pours it, and is surprised when the bump doesn’t react. She apparently has no opinion either way on what promises to be a disgusting drink.

 _I didn’t wake up before eleven for this_ , he thinks, miserably, and takes a sip.

“Victor,” he calls out, turning as Victor darts into the kitchen - he’s been on high baby alert for the last three weeks - azaleas in his hair quivering with nerves.

Yuuri shakes his head to explain _no, the baby’s not on its way_ , and offers the cup up to Victor’s lips.

Victor raises his eyebrows but drinks, obediently, and licks his lips thoughtfully when Yuuri pulls the mug back.

“It’s the tea Chris sent,” he explains, taking another (disgusting) sip, and watching the subtle shift of Victor’s features as he processes the flavour.

Victor sidles closer, and wraps his hand round Yuuri’s wrist.

“It’s nice,” he says, “Chris has good taste.”

Yuuri takes the hint and lifts the mug up to his mouth again, can feel the pleased flush spreading through him as he takes in the look Victor gives him over the rim.

There’s dog hair over his trousers, red petals just beginning to dust his shoulders, and he looks lovely. A vision in a t-shirt emblazoned with cartoon poodles. Yuuri can endure the horrid, florid taste of the tea if he gets to look at Victor like this, he thinks.

Then he hears himself say, “you like jam tea, you have awful taste,” and the spell is broken.

He retrieves his tea, cradles it protectively against his chest - the bump doesn’t move, but some soft sensation whispers through his body. Something like amusement, something like _excitement_. He breathes, sharply, and presses one hand over his stomach.

Victor’s face turns concerned - _alarmed_ \- and he starts putting his hands all over Yuuri’s belly. Touching here and there, like he can tell anything from the press of palms to the swell.

“Are you-”

“Fine, we’re fine.” Yuuri, much as he enjoys having Victor’s hands on him, (anywhere, anytime,) puts his mug down and gently wraps his fingers round Victor’s wrists. Smiles up at him, tries to soothe the fractious edges of Victor’s anxiety before it seeps, spreads into himself.

He’s pulled into a careful hug - more for Victor’s benefit than his, though it’s still calming. Comforting. Yuuri finds his home in Victor’s embrace, and the baby’s weight, and he lets himself drift a little. Nuzzles into Victor’s neck, presses a kiss just below his ear and says, “she just agrees with me about your taste in teas.”

Victor pulls back to give him A Look.

“You can’t talk about taste. Not after the apples.”

“That was a craving,” Yuuri pushes him away, more playful than pouting, “cravings are allowed.”

Victor’s look turns flat, affection shimmering behind his pale irises.

(“This is different from the jam thing,” Yuuri’d explained, when Victor found him meticulously salting slices of apple at three in the morning. “I don’t _have_ to eat them.”

Then he said, “wait, no, I changed my mind,” as Victor plucked the plate of defiled fruit out of his grasp.)

Yuuri returns to his now lukewarm tea and takes a long, slow sip. Then he grimaces at the taste, at the way the baby’s presence seems to fizzle, just beneath his skin. It’s not unpleasant exactly, just uncomfortable. Feels like his anxiety, if it was hitting him from another room. He finally surrenders the tea to Victor, who drops a kiss onto his forehead and mutters down at the bump in Russian (too low for Yuuri to catch, though he’s certain he gets the gist anyway.)

“What’s left on the list?” Victor asks, and Yuuri sighs.

“Well, after the tea,” which could, he supposes, work (he’s fairly certain this isn’t a _drink it and suddenly!_ deal,) “we could go for a walk.”

“Hmm, thought we already tried that?”

They have. In fact, Yuuri’s spent most of the last week going for long walks, which usually just end with him grumpy and tired. Unwilling to stop trying, but also really, very tired of endless walking. He’s started taking Makkachin, just so he’s got an excuse to stop and distract himself that doesn’t involve engaging in public indecency with his husband.

Poor Makkachin’s beginning to give them dubious looks anytime the word 'walk' is mentioned, instead of bolting for the door in excitement. She chooses this moment to trot into the kitchen for her customary morning greeting; accepts a single pat on the head from Victor on her way to butt her muzzle, gently, against the bump. Knows how softly she needs to press without causing Yuuri discomfort. Just firm enough that he knows she’s there.

The bump kicks, once, lazily, and Makka sits back with a soft sound and an expectant look.

Yuuri looks at Victor, who smiles back, hopelessly smitten.

“Victor, I can’t reach.” Yuuri says, nodding down at the bump as Makka’s tail starts thumping against the floor.

Victor puts his drink down and opens the cupboard they keep Makkachin’s treats in - the one just above Yuuri’s head, and he uses it as an excuse to bump into him, stand closer than necessary. He pulls a handful of snacks out and turns back to Makkachin. Does something behind his back, presents his hands with a flourish to her.

Makkachin, with the air of the distinctly unimpressed, raises a paw and pats his left hand.

“You’re right,” Victor tells her, pointlessly, as she takes her treats from his fingers.

“Of course she is,” Yuuri mutters, “that dog’s the smartest person in this house.”

The baby turns, or twists - does _something_ that sets Yuuri’s nerves alight. Has him feeling like a held hand, a lifeline in the dark. He touches his belly, watches Victor lavish Makkachin with praise, and his eyes settle on the flowers in Victor’s hair. The thought comes upon him, descending like a fraught crown.

_Cool autumn air and red stars._

Victor looks up, as Yuuri strokes the bump absently. Gives him a brilliant, soft smile.

“Makkachin is a genius.”

A flowerhead drops onto Victor’s shoulder, and Yuuri’s finger twitches over his belly button.

 

\- - -   - - - - - -

Once Makkachin’s had her morning walk (and Yuuri’s got through it without cursing a single one of the gods, or promising the bump increasingly ridiculous things if she comes out now,) Victor presents Yuuri with a bowl of pineapple.

Yuuri, who is slumped on the coach, contemplating never getting up ever again, stares at the bowl of sweet fruit being held out to him for a moment. Then he accepts it with a bewildered smile, and tucks in. Enjoys the way the tart flavour explodes across his tongue and silently wonders, not for the first time, how Victor knows exactly what he needs without asking.

“Better than lemon?” Victor asks, when Yuuri’s halfway through chewing his third or fourth slice. Gets a dark glower in reply.

“Lemon is a fruit,” Yuuri says, “you’re supposed to eat fruit.” Has to bite down a frankly indecent noise at a particularly sweet slice, is delighted at the way Victor’s face goes pink.

The pineapple actually perks Yuuri up, and by the time he’s demolished the bowl he feels like he could go for another walk. One with hills. If he could pull himself out of the cushions he’s sunk himself into. He can just about reach the side table where he places the bowl down with a click, and turns back to Victor, who’s watching him with bright eyes.

Yuuri holds out his hands, and Victor takes them. Instead of pulling Yuuri up, he climbs onto the sofa. Slumps, drapes himself over Yuuri’s side until he’s an uncomfortable weight, and sighs into his hair.

“Pineapple was on the list, right?” Victor asks, turning his face so his lips brush Yuuri’s skin with each word. Each syllable sending a tickling whisper through him, comforting and exciting all at once, until Yuuri prickles with the love passing between them.

He flounders for a second, before he remembers what Victor must mean. Pineapple was one of several foods recommended to induce labour, and one of the few things further research said wasn’t particularly dangerous (Victor being meticulous about checking such things, vetoing several other suggestions on this basis.)

“Hmm,” Yuuri nods, “now I just need to eat eight more and we’ll be set.”

Victor goes very still, and Yuuri pulls back to look at him. Genuinely considers the idea that Victor has bought out some poor shop’s entire stock of the fruit for the sole purpose of getting their baby born. Can imagine it, in fact, with Victor’s accented Japanese and a bemused shop assistant trying to help him carry them out.

“How much did you get?” Yuuri asks.

Victor manages to keep the act up for all of about three seconds, cracking under Yuuri’s stare with a laugh - a smile that almost cracks his face in two.

“Just the one. Thought it’d be a nice break from the walking,” he bows his head, kisses Yuuri’s cheek, “and from the tea.”

It was. Is. Yuuri kisses Victor properly, takes his hand and guides it to sit over his belly where the bump is still quiet. Twines their fingers together in a knot, and tugs until they’re lying awkwardly across the sofa.

Victor perches, precariously, over him, hand hot and heavy in Yuuri’s. When he breaks the kiss, he’s breathless, cheeks as pink as the petals fluttering down over Yuuri, and Yuuri _aches_. Misses him from inches away. He slides down a little, to give himself room to arch just so - just to make Victor’s breath hitch in his throat.

Victor flexes his hand under Yuuri’s grasp and swallows.

“Is this on your list?”

“Hmm,” Yuuri bends his knee, slides it between Victor’s legs and earns a startled gasp, “sex is on every list.”

“Not that I’m com- _plaining_ ,” Victor’s voice hitches when Yuuri’s knee bumps higher, “but I think if sex did the trick, it would have - _ah_ \- done so, by now.”

Yuuri pauses, lets a slow smirk spread across his face (watches Victor watch it, the way his pupils grow, how he bites at his lip.)

“Maybe we weren’t trying hard enough.”

Victor chokes, offended, and makes to shove him - changes his direction at the last second to cup Yuuri’s cheek and kiss him. Nips at his lips, burns a scorching path to the very core of him with his tongue.

Yuuri slides their tangled hands up, until they’re over his heart. Releases his grip to touch the shaking flowers crowning Victor’s face. Whispers, when they part for air, “nipple stimulation is on the list too.”

“Oh,” Victor says, and slides his hand under Yuuri’s shirt, “were there instructions?”

His fingers are burning, heat leaking out from the pads of his fingertips and spreading through Yuuri’s flesh. He curls his hand up, round Yuuri’s ribcage, until he can swipe his thumb across one sensitive nipple; Yuuri squeaks, jerks in surprise, and presses his knee firmer between Victor’s thighs.

“Funnily enough, Phichit doesn’t normally send me -” Yuuri takes in a sharp breath as Victor pinches his nipple, sending an electric jolt through his body, “ - instructions on what to do with nipples.”

Victor hums, bends low to kiss Yuuri’s jaw and mutter, “I must be doing it wrong. It doesn’t seem to be doing anything.” Then he’s thumbing and pressing at the tender flesh of Yuuri’s chest. Just painful enough to have Yuuri squirming in his jeans.

“It’s doing _something_ ,” Yuuri breathes, and drags Victor down for more.

 

After, they lie together. Victor snoring as he half hangs off the pillows, Yuuri dozes in between cataloguing the lines of his sleeping face. Halfway between asleep and awake, suspended in the blissful state where he’s too fatigued to worry. To do anything but love and know he’s loved. He stretches his fingers across the bump, tapping an absent rhythm she refuses to respond to; the presence in the back of his mind, running through his skeleton, seems distant, somehow. Still there, just...preoccupied, almost?

 _She has to get ready,_ he thinks, out of nowhere. Has to prepare, and percolate, and when it’s time - _her_ time - she’ll come.

Yuuri dreams of red stars, tangled together like a wreath, and tastes snow as he falls, finally, into sleep.

 

“Yuuri,” a voice whispers, piercing like a beacon through the dark of sleep, “Yuuri, wake up, it’s time.”

 _It’s time,_ he agrees, sinking under the weight of the bump. An anchor in some, strange sea; it’s cold, but it’s right, and when his eyes fly open, there’s faint, red sunspots swimming before him. He blinks them away and finds Victor peering down at him, face soft with fondness, hair tickling Yuuri’s cheek.

“Hngh?” Yuuri says, eloquent as always.

Victor draws back and Yuuri notices he’s changed his clothes, has apparently had time to shower judging by his wet hair, and has draped Yuuri in a fleecy, blanket.

“‘S time?” Yuuri asks, voice creaking with sleep on a yawn.

“About five,” Victor explains, and Yuuri is halfway to correcting him when he stops. Isn’t quite sure what he was actually asking, if not what time it was.

Instead, he sits up - hauls himself up with a hand on the back of the sofa, to be specific - and stretches. The blanket slides down, pools around the bump in a furry, grey pile. Yuuri blinks down at himself, at his belly, and wonders for a second if he could get away with not putting clothes back on.

Victor’d approve, if no one else would.

“We’ve got half an to get ready,” Victor announces, “Mari’s coming to pick Makka up.”

“What?” Yuuri looks up at him, still not quite stripped of the tendrils of sleep, gaping at Victor and stroking the bump carefully.

Victor looks _thrilled_.

 _No, not thrilled,_ Yuuri knows, _he’s pleased with himself. Too pleased._

This alone wakes Yuuri the rest of the way up, and he shifts so he’s sitting properly. Legs either side of Victor’s body - of the smart slacks he’s put on, and when Yuuri takes him in properly, he realises Victor’s also wearing his formal shirt. The one he wears to both business meetings and dates, because it’s as intimidating as it is flattering.

Yuuri likes this shirt. It makes Victor’s waist look trim, tailored criminally across his shoulders. Makes _Yuuri_ go weak at the knees, still.

“Why are you wearing your Fuck Me shirt?” He blurts out, (such is the power of said shirt,) and squints at Victor as if he’ll find the answer on his face.

Victor’s smile turns unbearably smug, and he clasps Yuuri’s hands in his own as he stands, pulling him upright with him. Politely doesn’t leer when the blanket falls, leaving Yuuri bare and chilly in their living room.

“We’re going out for dinner.”

“Is that a good idea?” Yuuri lets himself be led towards the bedroom, still feeling sluggish, though alert enough to note the flowers crowning Victor’s head are teeming. Thick and vibrant.

“It’s an excellent idea!”

Yuuri can’t argue with that, he supposes. So he approaches the wardrobe, while Victor opens the drawers to gather underwear and other necessities.

He looks at the clothes available, then at what he can actually wear. He leans back and looks at the Victor-shaped blur sorting clothing on the bedsheets.

“Victor, how ni-”

“Wear whatever makes you comfy,” he turns his head up, and Yuuri doesn’t need his glasses to know he’s winking, “I just wanted to dress up.”

Which is...fair enough. Yuuri feels a surge of affection and can’t quite stop it from spilling out, judging from the way a slash of a smile appears on Victor’s face. His own love twisting into Yuuri’s, plaiting together.

Eventually Yuuri settles on a dark shirt and maternity jeans, comfy and plain enough to get away with a smart-casual setting, which he suspects is the lower end of the place Victor’s decided they’ll be eating at. He manages to get most of his clothing on by himself - an achievement, these days - and pauses only when he’s putting his top on. Pulling the fabric down, over his stomach, and noticing...nothing. Stillness and silence from the baby.

Yuuri’s heart clenches, and he freezes until there’s a flutter. A tug in his mind, almost as if to say “I’m fine, leave me alone.” He wonders if babies can need Me Time when they’re not even born yet, but he’s distracted from his musing when Victor slots behind him, and starts tucking Yuuri’s shirt down, neatly. Touches lingering, longing.

He nudges his nose to the ticklish spot behind Yuuri’s ear, kisses it, and says, “I just thought it’d be nice to have a meal out. One last night of reckless abandon before the baby’s born.”

“I plan to eat until I sleep,” Yuuri points out, “does that count as reckless abandon?”

Victor squeezes him, kisses him again and whispers, “ _absolutely_ ,” making Yuuri laugh and turn in his arms to study his face.

Victor tilts his head, hair falling with the movement making his azaleas wobble and flutter - and Yuuri feels something shift. A keystone coming loose inside him.

He knows, with all the certainty he can muster, that it’s going to happen soon.

But, he figures, _soon_ doesn’t mean he can’t have a nice dinner with his husband. He rocks up on his toes and pecks Victor sweetly on the lips, making him blush and blink down at Yuuri.

“What was that for?”

“Nothing,” Yuuri shrugs, “are you going to tell me where we’re eating or is it a surprise?”

The look Victor gives him says everything, so Yuuri offers him his hand.

“Okay. Lead the way.”

 

It’s within walking distance, which should have been the first clue. Yuuri is still suitably surprised when Victor tugs him off the street into the little curry house they went to as their first ‘official’ date, all those years ago, after Yuuri won silver in Barcelona. It’s small. Cosy. All natural wood and rustic charm punctuated by the way spices linger, warmly, in the air.

Yuuri’s stomach rumbles the minute he inhales, and the bump turns over in the biggest display of opinion she’s given all day.

“Victor,” he says, voice low, “I love you.”

Victor smiles toothily, looks somehow bashful as he helps Yuuri into his seat. Kisses his hand, lips lingering over his ring finger, before he slides into his own seat across from Yuuri. The table is small enough that their legs are bumping and they can lean together, heads bowed in conspiracy over the brightly coloured tablecloth.

“Mama suggested it,” Victor says quietly, pulling the menu out from under their elbows so they can look at it together.

That gives Yuuri pause; Victor takes his mothers’ advice even less often than he actually asks for it.

“It was a good suggestion.”

“I thought we’d cross some more off your list,” Victor explains, “two birds, one _fancy_ stone.”

Yuuri can’t help smiling, because of course Victor knows the most efficient way to both woo Yuuri and help fulfil his list of Old Wives Tales. Or, at least, the most romantic.

“Spicy food.” Yuuri says. Taps his foot on Victor’s under the table.

“That...and apparently this is how they persuaded me to be born.”

This is the moment a waiter chooses to stop by them, and she gives them a wide-eyed look before covering it with a practiced smile. Takes their requests for water, (“Are you sure? Apparently gin’s good for inducing labour,” Victor says playfully, before Yuuri kicks him in the ankle) then leaves with the air of the very confused and utterly charmed.

Yuuri gestures at Victor to carry on with his explanation.

“Mama got frustrated waiting, so she decided to try and taunt me out. She arranged to have one last meal with Mamochka where they wouldn’t be concerned with a baby. Naturally, she went into labour during the starter.”

Yuuri blinks.

“Your parents actually goaded you into being born.”

It makes sense, actually, given...oh...everything Yuuri knows about Victor and his parents. Not one of them any more patient than they need to be for whatever they’re planning at any given moment, and entirely incapable of not trolling the universe. In any capacity.

 _Oh,_ Yuuri thinks, dropping one hand down to his belly - where the bump kicks once, hard, then is still once again. **_Oh_**.

Victor’s eyes follow the movement, fondness and fear fighting for dominance in his gaze. Alternately concerned and loving in the way he stares down at the bump. His fingers are tugging, nervously, at a napkin. Ripping it to shreds on the table, and Yuuri has the strangest feeling that along the way they’ve swapped neuroses.

“Do you think she’ll be the same?” Victor asks, so quiet Yuuri has to strain to hear it. Can’t _not_ hear the thready undercurrent of fear in his words, the jagged edge of his excitement where it turns into anxiety.

Yuuri doesn’t know. Can only tell that she’s theirs, and she’s going to be wonderful, and it’s  _time_.

 _It’s time_ , he thinks again. Eyes drawn to the way the light catches Victor’s hair, the starlike petals sitting, sifting through silvery strands. And, as if summoned by the thought, discomfort ripples through him. Stretching, creasing through his abdomen and _oh_ , he knows now. Knows why the baby’s been so sluggish and unresponsive, almost like she’s too distracted to answer his quiet queries.

She’s ready - he’s not sure he is. But then, what else is new?

Yuuri stares at Victor, feels the anxiety sloughing off him, and wonders when they changed roles in this. When _he_ became the calm one, in the face of the baby’s imminent arrival. Maybe because he can actually feel the baby’s heart, her formless thoughts and feelings a constant companion for the last few months.

If Victor could feel her the way Yuuri does, then maybe he’d be less worried; if he could feel her the way Yuuri does, he’d do a much worse job of hiding the tight, tensing pain that throbs up the small of Yuuri’s back.

Yuuri is and isn’t ready. So he rides it out, masks it with a tight smile and leans forward until he can smell the sweet scent of Victor’s flowers.

“What did your parents do?” He asks, places both his hands on the table between them, palms up, inviting Victor’s to press down into them, “Did they cut their meal short?”

At this Victor looks immensely proud, (puffs up in the way that normally preceded an awful round of semi-serious “In Russia We” one-upmanship when they were training in St. Petersburg) and drops his hands to meet Yuuri’s. Lets his fingers rest against Yuuri’s wrists, and traces idle shapes there, anxiety bleeding out of him with each sweep of fingers.

“She said she was damned if I was going to stop her having dessert. Didn’t mention it to Mamochka until they were about to pay the check.”

Yuuri has to remind himself that it's not a challenge for him to accept.

 

The meal is lovely. There’s a fair few other customers in the restaurant, providing a backdrop of soft chatter that soothes Yuuri, even as the weight of his situation sets in. The staff are polite and attentive, while the food is so good that Yuuri has contemplated marrying his dish at least twice while eating it.

“I don’t know,” Victor says, eyeing Yuuri’s plate, “it doesn’t seem like the sharing type and we’re kind of a package deal.”

“Think of it this way,” Yuuri swallows a delicious mouthful - frowns as tightness runs through him, “you won’t have to compete with it for long. Then you get to comfort an attractive widower.”

Victor seems to be seriously considering this suggestion, and the tightness turns into an ache. Dull pain that paints itself under the rest of whatever Yuuri’s feeling, before turning serrated, like a bread knife taken to his insides.

His knuckles pale where he’s clutching his drink, and Victor’s expression sharpens. Clears the way it does when he’s studying a routine, all pointed focus and a stark, sharp reminder that he doesn’t get called a genius for nothing.

“Are you okay?” He says, eyes cutting up and down Yuuri’s form. Some faint suspicion in that crystalline stare.

Yuuri exhales, slowly, and pushes his plate away. Finished for now.

“Thank you for this, Victor.”

Victor’s face changes to what Yuuri can only describe as a human exclamation mark, eyebrows raised and mouth dropping, confused.

“You don’t have to thank me,” Victor frowns, “Yuuri, is ever-”

Yuuri’s answer is lost in the knot of pressure that pushes up, out of him, like the world’s worst cramp. And he can’t keep it in, tucked into his chest with everything else. Can see the moment it hits Victor, who flinches, and goes momentarily white as a sheet.

Yuuri releases his grip on his glass, places his hands in delicate fists in his lap.

“I think we need to ask for the check,” he inhales sharply. Gives Victor a long, pointed look, as he slowly uncurls his fingers.

Realisation drops on Victor like a rock, and the colour floods back to to his cheeks as he flags down a waiter.

Yuuri doesn’t even get a moment to enjoy the performance that is Victor in action, as another wave of sensation grips him. This time less painful, more...pressing. A sense of urgency that it takes him a second to realise isn’t his own, is quaking through the place in his mind where the baby’s gentle presence normally sits.

“Oh,” he says (Victor makes a noise that is the closest Yuuri’s ever heard him come to panic,) and wraps his arms around his middle while Victor settles the bill.

 _It’s okay_ , he thinks, downward, to where the nerves are worst. _It’s going to be alright._

And, bizarrely. That’s enough. The nerves settle, turn into a low buzz of confusion and Yuuri…

Yuuri looks at Victor gathering himself together to sort things out, feels such a surge of love and quiet confidence that he’s got this. He’s got Victor, and the baby, and he’s. Got. This.

Victor’s a shield, a safeguard even when he’s across the room; Yuuri knows what to do, and that he can count of Victor to help him do it.

Still though. He’d like not to have their baby in the middle of a curry house.

“I’ll be outside,” he tells Victor, who gives him a wild stare, before nodding, squeezing his hand before he goes back to gathering their things and signing receipts.

Yuuri makes it outside with only marginally less ease than expected, though he feels achy, legs a little weak with the tensing pain. The air is cool, a welcome splash against his heated skin, and he takes careful breaths. Leans, almost casually, against the wall outside.

He looks around and takes in the strange, serene evening. Lovely, autumnal air and the sound of pedestrians milling around; when he looks up, a small cloud of pigeons are peering down at him from their roosts on a windowsill and where it would normally be unnerving it’s...calming. They’re a feathery little cheering squad, cooing and watching with beady eyes, as he tries very hard not to exude “Baby Incoming” like a neon sign.

 _Cold air,_ he thinks, and when Victor finally joins him outside, already on his phone, talking to the taxi service, Yuuri thinks he understands, finally.

Victor’s flowers are shaken, petals in a stream through his hair, looking not unlike he’s just been dragged through a bush backwards.

Yuuri reaches his fingers up to touch them just as Victor hangs up, and Victor gives him a searching look.

“How are you doing? It- they, doing? Yu-” He pauses, just as Yuuri rubs one pointed petal between his forefinger and thumb.

“Red stars,” Yuuri says, tracing his fingertips over the line of them that remain, a papery, purpling circlet across Victor’s brow.

And in the back of his mind, he sees a silver line. Like the gold one he imagined as a child, first seeing Victor on the television screen; destiny or fate, but definite. Meant to be. A line between the three of them - Yuuri, Victor, and baby.

“Yuuri,” Victor says, quietly, awestruck and somehow. Yuuri knows he understands. That he feels it, or sees it too.

“Victor,” Yuuri agrees, “I’m sorry.”

Victor’s face turns confused, furrowing, and he asks, “What for-”

Tense, tight agony runs through Yuuri, and, unable to extricate his hands quick enough, he yanks Victor’s hair so hard his yelp echoes down the street.

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

Divine births, historically, run the gamut of ‘mildly disconcerting’ to ‘horrifying, awful, would not recommend’.

Yuuri falls somewhere in between. They end up at the hospital, because, funnily enough, neither of them want their baby to be born in a doorway - or to push their already well-strung luck with fate and his whims.

It’s painful (for him and Victor both, for which Yuuri profusely apologises while Victor stares, dumbstruck, at the end result in Yuuri’s arms,) and yet, it’s somehow serene. The pain has purpose, and Yuuri’s no stranger to enduring; bracing himself in the seconds before a fall ends to land, however wobbly, without injury. There’s doctors and machines and instead of coldly clinical, it’s...peaceful. Steady. Like a well-oiled machine.

So he endures, and when he lands, there’s a squirming bundle in his arms and something in the world has changed. He knows what his mother meant, all those months ago, when she told him the baby would be special; can tell that while she’s divine, she’s not like him. Something new and wonderful.

She’s quiet, in the seconds after she’s born. A breathless, heart-aching moment of silence, before she opens her mouth and lets loose her lungs. Has a bigger belt on her than Yuuri’s sure should be possible for something so small. And she is _tiny_ , an entire world in his hands. Pudgy, ruddy with yelling, and _perfect_.

A few strands of her fine, dark hair are sticking out, giving her a faintly manic look, and as she blinks her brown eyes he knows she’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

His heart hurts with the expanse of love he feels. It’s scorching, bleaching his bones at the same time as it’s clearing out the shadows of his mind. Any worries and doubts sent skittering as he looks at her and just. _Loves_. From the tip of her mussed head to her wrinkly, little feet. The curious little presence he’s felt all throughout the pregnancy now complete - a whole, wriggly person, sitting in his arms and radiating nothing but _safe_ and _home_ and _feed me._

He may be putting words into her tiny, speechless mouth, but he figures he’s allowed some hormone-induced mawkishness. It’s hard not to be sentimental when the world has focused, zeroed, onto his child - _their_ child.

Speaking of which.

“Victor,” Yuuri whispers, finally managing to tear his eyes away from the baby ( _our baby!,_ his brain excitedly points out) and taking in Victor’s dishevelled state.

Victor’s always effortlessly fashionable. Smart, if a little bit rumpled. But his eyes are red, and his hair is unkempt - littered with buds and leaves, flowers lost somewhere between the street and the birth. He’s staring, besotted, at her. Fingers making grasping motions in his lap, then he reaches out, stretching to touch. Cradles her head, which fits neatly into one hand.

Victor lets out a soft gasp when she appears to take notice of him. Dark eyes flicking towards his side of the room, and her tiny legs kick in Yuuri’s arms gently.

“This is fine, right?” Victor’s words come out in a jumble, like he’s been holding them in the entire time, “We get to take her home? She’s ours to keep?”

Yuuri - too tired, beatific with exhaustion and satisfaction - sighs. Tries his best reassuring smile, though Victor doesn’t see it. Still too busy staring at their daughter, taking everything in. And it’s endearing, in a funny, awful sort of way; the doubts coming full circle from Yuuri’s early conviction that Something or Someone would take this away, to now. To the reality of their love made flesh, able to be touched and seen, and Victor still needing confirmation that it’s here to stay.

That _she’s_ here to stay. She’s real. Currently drowsing, having apparently screamed herself to sleep, and that’s the proof of permanence for Yuuri right there. That someone so small and vulnerable trusts him so much already - has shared a space with him for nine months and concluded that yes, actually, he’s pretty okay.

“Here,” he nods for Victor to come closer. Shifts on the bed as best he can, and Victor slides onto it with a grace his trembling betrays. One shaky line against Yuuri’s side, love and anticipation palpable, pulsing outwards.

He holds his arm out and Yuuri carefully gives him the baby. Victor doesn’t need to be told what to do, is already tucking her gently into the cradle of his embrace like a natural. Looking down at her like she’s got the answers of the universe in her scrunched up, sleepy face. He rocks her, says, “hello there,” and his nervousness melts away. Bleeds into a smile that has Yuuri smiling back without thinking because yeah, Yuuri knows _exactly_ how he’s feeling right now.

In Victor’s arms she starts to snore - more like a snuffle, but still. A wonderful, adorable sound, that makes Victor look up with glee. He raises his eyebrows at Yuuri and Yuuri can’t help laughing.

“She gets that from you,” he points out.

Victor doesn’t argue. Just holds her closer and bends low, to whisper into her ear.

“It’s alright, _lyubov_ , he’s just jealous.”

Yuuri ignores this accusation in favour of drooping against Victor’s side. He’s radiating warmth, wrapping them - all three of them - in a happy, bright aura, and Yuuri tries to leech some of the nervousness out of it. To help assuage Victor’s fears, the way Victor helps quiet Yuuri’s own demons.

Mostly, he just...breathes. Savours the moment of bliss, of peace. With the people he loves most in his arms, hearts pressing back against the swelling stretch of his own. His Victor, with his shaking, gentle hands; his daughter, with their _everything_ in her chubby palms.

They sit, in sappy silence, while she snoozes. Watch as a tiny, delicate flowerbud peeks over her left ear - the only one, as far as Yuuri can see, and it’s precious. Wonderful that she shares at least some part of Victor’s divine aspect while she already embodies Yuuri’s, wrapped in and born of love.

“Oh,” Victor says, surprised, as the flowerbud blooms. Opens slowly, almost tentative.

Yuuri holds his breath and then, there’s a hibiscus. Smaller than anything Victor has ever blossomed, but still seeming huge against her furrowed, little brow.

It - she - _everything_ , is _beautiful_.

“Oh no,” Victor speaks again, apparently having a realisation.

Yuuri says “hmm”, feeling lazy and happy as he slumps against him, encircling one of the baby’s little ankles with his finger and thumb.

“The name we picked.” Victor nudges him, looks at him with an expression Yuuri knows well. It’s the one he wears when he’s not quite decided if he’s winding Yuuri up or not yet, but is having fun doing it all the same.

It’s an infuriating look, and Yuuri loves it. Basks in it, until he registers what Victor’s said and then, he too, has the same realisation.

“Ah. Yes.”

He looks back down at his fingers, resting against her arms. Tugs gently - still revelling in the very real weight of her limbs. He scrunches his face up in thought, though the thought is mostly clouded by what he assumes is oxytocin. Tries to guide it ashore in his mind, leading it through the the fog of postnatal bonding until it finds stable footing. Until he can string a sentence together that doesn’t amount to _baby_ , _look at_ , and _ours!_

“I don’t know,” he finally manages. “It feels like a cliché.”

Or at the very least, dangerously on the nose. But then, his parents weren’t exactly subtle with his name - and Victor is literally named _Victor_.

Victor nods while Yuuri has his internal crisis. Turns his attention back to their daughter, whose snores have stopped, and is now blinking her eyes open a crack, almost like she’s spying on them. Intrigued. Her presence a sated, happy buzz under Yuuri’s skin.

“It’s fine if you don’t want to, Yuuri. Though…” He trails off, tracing a line down her face until his finger rests under her chin.

Yuuri studies her. She’s looking up at them, though he knows she’s probably not really seeing much of anything at the minute. The flower over her ear is vibrant and silky to touch.

“I know,” he says, “it just sort of...suits her.”

Victor hums his agreement. Grounding even as he grounds himself against Yuuri.

“Okay then,” Yuuri presses one finger to her nose, enjoying the way her entire face screws up in confusion, “welcome home, Hanako.”

\- - -   - - -   - - -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things on my list of awful research into ~home remedies for inducing labour~ that didn’t make it into this chapter:  
>  _\- Driving on a bumpy road_  
>  _\- Doing squats_ (let the man rest he’s done enough squats for a lifetime)  
>  _\- Acupressure_  
>  _\- Castor oil_ (the description of how it works amounted to “it’s a laxative so it’s in that area ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯” and I had to go stare into space for a bit)  
>  _\- Evening primrose oil capsules “up the fanjo”_ (no further explanation offered.)
> 
> Another, more relevant note: Hanako can be written to mean 'flower child' (花子), which is the writing I picked. It then took me three chapters before I realised how on the nose that was, by which point, it had stuck.
> 
> I will probably revisit the divine universe at some point in future - either a prequel, or a sequel, wherever the mood takes me. The free day chapter plot involved their extended families, which felt like a plotline of its own rather than a natural part of this story, so keep an eye out for that at some point :D (My next challenge, however, is to try and fill a prompt from the kink meme each month, because hey, this pseud was originally intended for smut, and I think it’s time I got back to using it for its intended purpose and putting my fluff on my fluff pseud.)
> 
> Thank you all so much for your lovely comments. They really kept me going and gave me the motivation to finish this - it is, incidentally, the first multi-chapter fic I've ever completed since I started writing fanfic in the early 00s! So I hope you all enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it! Softness begets softness, and I am weak for soft things; I'm so happy to have found such lovely readers who indulge me (o´▽`o)
> 
> Happy New Year, here's to a better, brighter 2019!

**Author's Note:**

> Me: I've never written mpreg in all my time in fandom, let's so something light and breezy and not too involved
> 
> Also Me: Let's do all this in yet another AU :)))))


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